GitHub's Teams app now runs Copilot cloud agent, and the old GitHub app in Teams retires on 16 November

GitHub has folded its two Microsoft Teams apps into one. The app that used to be called GitHub Notifications is now just GitHub, and it carries Copilot cloud agent as well as the usual issue and pull request notifications. GitHub announced the change in its changelog on 23 October. The older app that ran Copilot in Teams is being renamed GitHub (deprecated) and retires on 16 November 2026.

The pitch: a bug report lands in a Teams channel as a notification, someone replies with @GitHub, and Copilot investigates, writes a fix in a cloud environment and opens a pull request for the team to review.

What you have to do

It depends on which app you have, according to Microsoft’s message MC1515929 (19 October):

• GitHub Notifications users: update the app to the latest version by hand. Existing notification setups keep working, and Copilot features appear for people with an eligible Copilot license.
• Legacy GitHub app users: remove it from your Teams conversations and add the new GitHub app to those conversations before 16 November, or Copilot in Teams stops working for you.
• Microsoft 365 admins: allow the GitHub app in Teams app policies. If your tenant restricts resource-specific consent (RSC), configure the team and chat consent policies, or Copilot cannot use the chat and thread history as context.
• GitHub admins: enable Copilot cloud agent and cloud sandboxes for each organization that will use it, and assign Copilot licenses, per the admin FAQ.

Microsoft says the worldwide rollout began in mid-October and should finish by mid-November.

How it behaves in a shared thread

The GitHub Docs page still labels the integration a public preview, available on all paid Copilot plans. A few details matter before you invite it into a busy channel:

• The whole thread is context. When you mention @GitHub, Copilot captures the entire thread and stores that context in the artifacts it creates. To limit what it sees, send the request as a direct message to the app instead.
• Who it acts as. In a direct message it acts with your linked GitHub account. In a channel or group thread it creates pull requests and issues under its own app identity.
• One extra approval. Because those shared-context pull requests are not attributed to a person, repositories that use rulesets and already require at least one approval need one more approval before merging. GitHub says this is on by default.
• Who can steer. Only people with write access to the repository can trigger changes. Anyone in the conversation can add context, but guests and outside collaborators cannot start or steer a session.

You can name a repository and base branch in the prompt, for example @GitHub Create a pull request to ... repo=OWNER/REPO_NAME branch=BRANCH_NAME, and later @GitHub mentions in the same thread iterate on the same work.

Practical takeaway

Put 16 November in the calendar if anyone on your team used the old GitHub app in Teams. Before you turn the new one loose in a large channel, check what that channel discusses: everything in the thread becomes input to the agent and ends up in the issue or pull request it writes. For sensitive work, a direct message to the app is the narrower option.