I used to create multiple local worktrees and mount the sub directories using Docker. This approach had significant limitations because many paths in the agent and .git files were hard-coded.
Unrelated to the feature itself, but remember a few months ago when someone posted Github's beta feature for stacked PRs, and a ton of people slammed them for releasing a seemingly vibe-coded site? To quote Mitchell Hashimoto, "One of the most requested GitHub features in years and the website looks like it was designed by someone 9 years into a 2 year community college program."[1]
When opening the posted link, my first thought was "imagine if the stacked PRs site had the same amount of effort put into it as the Github Copilot App site". They clearly have other preview features on this site already, so maybe I'm just confused on why stacked PRs got some b-grade announcement site. The obvious answer is "copilot", but I'm still curious.
It's kind of interesting that everyone is going for the desktop app format now.
These desktop agentic coding tools are a large UX step up from the CLIs, but I still think the future is going to be remote development as the coding agents start running for hours at a time. Building a desktop app seems short-sighted as it would just lock them out of the remote option completely.
I know it has the same functionality, but it also looks like the Codex app which looks like Cursor Agents! Are they sharing some VS Code primitive here?
Cool talk, thanks for sharing. What happened to the project? I see no mention to it on the Github Next website and even internal links to it like on page [1] go to a 404 - https://githubnext.com/projects/ace/
We had settled on Copilot's Sonnet 4.6 which incidentally is one of the models that got shanked in the pricing update.
Easily 7x or more for what amounts to self–serving work. At this point, we might just switch to 4.8 Opus.
Honestly, I would not spend a cent of my own money on a model that won't run on my PC, but still I feel like this is the end of this Microsoft product I hadn't used a month ago. We'll see if our sugar daddies keep funding it.
It's weird. I still remember 2008, when GitHub's claim to fame was that it was "the easiest (and prettiest) way to participate in the collaborative development of software."
Now they want to end that collaboration, and turn it into automation. Many C-suite executives right now are smiling bigly. Meanwhile, we're leading the exodus. Turns out, we still want the easiest and prettiest way to participate in the collaborative development of software, and GitHub ain't it!
GitHub also serves as a community hub beyond being a code hosting and collaboration platform, where engineers can connect.
In the past, clicking on someone’s profile would simply let you know like “Hey, this guy is pretty good” or “This guy is working on something interesting.” Losing that sense of home would be terrible.
The reason these tools exist is not because of non-professional developers, but quite the opposite.
A lot more professionals are now working on more projects simultaneously- something that was not practical just a year ago.
Though, while this is nice, considering that all of the action is happening on the same device, I am worried this is going to increase supply chain risks. Before, a developer would work on clearly designated projects for practical reasons. Now, the same developer can work across many projects that are quite different - for example, the marketing site and the backend - and because of an obscure and unimportant component on the marketing site, there can be an impact on backend systems.
I predict next “Windows Copilot App” (not to be confused with any of the others), Microsoft’s AI that controls your computer (like OpenAI Operator and Claude Computer)
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 50.0 ms ] threadWhen opening the posted link, my first thought was "imagine if the stacked PRs site had the same amount of effort put into it as the Github Copilot App site". They clearly have other preview features on this site already, so maybe I'm just confused on why stacked PRs got some b-grade announcement site. The obvious answer is "copilot", but I'm still curious.
[1] https://x.com/mitchellh/status/2043788123008868600
These desktop agentic coding tools are a large UX step up from the CLIs, but I still think the future is going to be remote development as the coding agents start running for hours at a time. Building a desktop app seems short-sighted as it would just lock them out of the remote option completely.
[1]: https://github.blog/news-insights/company-news/an-update-on-...
Edit: This short talk – https://maggieappleton.com/zero-alignment
[1] https://githubnext.com/posts/micro-ace-traffic-lights/
Other than fewer features.
Last month I used Copilot heavily, much much more than I usually do, but did not manage to use more than 58%.
Easily 7x or more for what amounts to self–serving work. At this point, we might just switch to 4.8 Opus.
Honestly, I would not spend a cent of my own money on a model that won't run on my PC, but still I feel like this is the end of this Microsoft product I hadn't used a month ago. We'll see if our sugar daddies keep funding it.
And after they will accuse the growth and all to be responsible for their stability issues...
Go here and you’ll be redirected with a query string including a customer parameter. That looks like trouble.
https://github.com/settings/billing/usage
Now they want to end that collaboration, and turn it into automation. Many C-suite executives right now are smiling bigly. Meanwhile, we're leading the exodus. Turns out, we still want the easiest and prettiest way to participate in the collaborative development of software, and GitHub ain't it!
In the past, clicking on someone’s profile would simply let you know like “Hey, this guy is pretty good” or “This guy is working on something interesting.” Losing that sense of home would be terrible.
But!
The reason these tools exist is not because of non-professional developers, but quite the opposite.
A lot more professionals are now working on more projects simultaneously- something that was not practical just a year ago.
Though, while this is nice, considering that all of the action is happening on the same device, I am worried this is going to increase supply chain risks. Before, a developer would work on clearly designated projects for practical reasons. Now, the same developer can work across many projects that are quite different - for example, the marketing site and the backend - and because of an obscure and unimportant component on the marketing site, there can be an impact on backend systems.
I wrote more about this here: https://chatbotkit.com/reflections/everyone-is-a-vip-now
I predict next “Windows Copilot App” (not to be confused with any of the others), Microsoft’s AI that controls your computer (like OpenAI Operator and Claude Computer)