Releasesby GlyphGitHub Copilot in Visual Studio , August update
August 2026 brought more control over how GitHub Copilot reasons, which models you use, how teams share specialized agents, and when you ask for a code review. Highlights Here’s what’s new with GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio 2026.
Also shipped Aug 28, 2026GitHub in August 2026 →
Monitor and cap external provider costs
Unity Gateway can now track and cap spend on external model providers, such as Amazon Bedrock and Azure AI Foundry, not just Databricks-provided models. If your organization already has capacity commitments directly with a provider, Unity Gateway becomes the single point to track that usage and enforce spend limits across teams and use cases.
Unity Catalog Skills (Beta)
You can now publish, govern, and share agent skills with Unity Catalog. A skill is a first-class Unity Catalog securable ( catalog.schema.skill ) that follows the SKILL.md specification , so you register it once and control who can discover, use, and update it with the same permissions, tags, and audit that protect your tables.
Looker visual modeling canvas for BigQuery enters preview
A drag-and-drop canvas builds and edits LookML models on BigQuery sources: join tables, define dimensions and measures, preview results and publish Explores without writing LookML.
Conversational Analytics verified queries , also known as golden queries , are now generally available
Conversational Analytics verified queries , also known as golden queries , are now generally available. You can also now define verified queries in Looker (Google Cloud core) instances.
Now available in preview, model localization is supported for imported projects
Now available in preview, model localization is supported for imported projects. By default, Looker uses the locale definitions from the importing project only, if the importing project has locale definitions.
More from GitHub CopilotEvery GitHub Copilot release →
GitHub Copilot weekly releases , August 24
This week’s updates give you more control over how Copilot runs, from team sessions in Slack and Teams to customization across the app, CLI, and your IDE. GitHub Copilot in Slack and Microsoft Teams Turn team conversations into shared agent sessions.
Upcoming changes to GitHub Copilot policies and billing
To provide a strong, consistent Copilot experience, we’re making three separate, upcoming changes to Copilot policies and billing. Please review the upcoming updates to understand what may impact you.
Copilot code review: Resolution reasons and expanded capabilities
Copilot code review can now review two types of pull requests it didn’t cover before: Reviews requested automatically on pull requests authored by bots, including Copilot cloud agent Very large pull requests Additionally, you can now submit the reason for why you’re resolving a particular Copilot code review comment.
Enterprise-managed settings now support autoUpdate for plugin marketplaces
You can now opt individual plugin marketplaces into automatic updates by setting autoUpdate: true on an extraKnownMarketplaces entry in enterprise managed settings. Supported clients automatically check the marketplace and update installed plugins sourced from it, reducing manual maintenance for organization customizations.
Global model policy generally available
In July, we announced a default model policy for generally available GitHub Copilot models on Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise plans. Starting today, we’re gradually rolling out enforcement of the policy through September 1, so it will take effect at different times for different enterprises.
Copilot model access update for GitHub Team plans
We have updated how model access is determined for Copilot users who hold seats in more than one organization. To keep billing and governance in sync, your model access is now determined only by the organization paying for your usage.
Selected GitHub Copilot models deprecated
As of today, September 1, 2026, we have deprecated the following models across most GitHub Copilot experiences (including Copilot Chat, inline edits, ask and agent modes, and code completions). Note that Claude Sonnet 4.6 is still available to individual GitHub Copilot subscribers on annual plans.
GitHub Copilot in VS Code, August 2026 releases
This changelog covers VS Code v1.132 through v1.135 , shipped throughout August 2026. These releases make it easier to organize agent sessions, review changes, and navigate long conversations. Agent Host, the integrated browser, and dictation also get updates to support more ways of working in VS Code.