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Speeding up development work with GitHub Copilot Spaces

Learn how to use Copilot Spaces to help you with development work.

Who can use this feature?

Anyone with a Copilot license can use Spaces.

Copilot Spaces helps you work faster when starting a new feature, understanding a system, or picking up a task in an unfamiliar codebase.

Use Spaces to:

  • Organize the context you need in one place.
  • Provide Copilot with relevant code and documentation.
  • Reduce time spent switching between tools or asking others for background information.

To create a space, go to https://github.com/copilot/spaces, and click Create space.

The examples in this article show you how to use Spaces for common development tasks.

Developing a new feature

Create a space when you start working on a specific feature. Add the relevant code, a product specification, and any supporting materials. Supporting materials can include notes from a design review or mockup images.

Copilot can help you:

  • Summarize how the current implementation works.
  • Suggest changes or additions based on the specification.
  • Draft a first implementation or outline next steps.
  • Flag missing elements or inconsistencies.

Instructions:

This space contains the new user registration form for a healthcare nonprofit providing low-cost testing. It is built using React and Tailwind.

Suggested prompt:

How should I add support for 2FA?

Defining the logic for a small, frequent task

Document the logic for repetitive tasks once and share it through a space. This approach keeps everyone consistent and saves time. Tasks like tracking telemetry events or handling event emissions benefit from this approach.

If you have a process flowchart, upload it to your space for reference. Copilot can:

  • Suggest efficient patterns based on your previous work.
  • Help write reusable functions or templates.
  • Review the logic to ensure it aligns with project standards.
  • Provide examples of how similar tasks have been handled in the codebase.

Instructions:

You help developers implement telemetry events. You should (1) validate what the user's goals are for the event, (2) propose a new event structure based on examples of existing events (and using the common telemetry schema), and (3) create a new version of the telemetry config file.

Suggested prompt:

Help me log when a user clicks on an in-app notification.

Sharing knowledge with teammates

Create a space for topics where people tend to ask similar questions. For example, questions about how authentication or search works in your project.

Copilot can:

  • Explain how the code works.
  • Answer questions based on the latest documentation.
  • Guide new team members on best practices.

Instructions:

You contain the code and documentation associated with our authentication system.

Suggested prompt:

How does SSO work?

Hands-on practice

Try the Scale institutional knowledge using Copilot Spaces Skills exercise for practical experience. This exercise shows you how to:

  • Centralize scattered project management knowledge in Copilot Spaces.
  • Convert team insights into searchable, versioned artifacts.
  • Give all team members equal access to processes, decisions, and rationale.
  • Connect a repository as a structured knowledge source.
  • Extract, refine, and standardize workflows collaboratively.
  • Feed validated improvements back into living documentation.
  • Accelerate onboarding and reduce single-person dependency risk.
  • Enable consistent, repeatable project execution.

Next steps

After you create a space to help with development tasks, consider sharing it with your team to reduce handoffs and repeated questions. See Collaborating with others using GitHub Copilot Spaces.