Preparing to use custom agents in your organization

Configure the repository that stores custom agents for your organization.

Who can use this feature?

Organization owners

In this article

Note

Copilot custom agents are in public preview and subject to change.

Prerequisites

You should understand what Copilot custom agents are and how they work. See About custom agents.

Note

If your organization is part of an enterprise, enterprise owners can configure a ruleset that restricts custom agents. Contact your enterprise owners to check whether you can create and manage organization-level custom agents.

Preparing your organization for custom agents

Organization-level custom agents are stored in the /agents directory of your organization's .github or .github-private repository. Both work the same way and make the custom agents available to all members of the organization, regardless of whether they have access to the repository itself.

For more information on .github and .github-private repositories, see Customizing your organization's profile.

If you don't already have a suitable repository, follow the steps below to create one. These steps describe creating a .github-private repository, but you can also create a .github repository by naming it .github instead.

  1. Create your custom agent repository using GitHub's template repository. The template includes a README and the file structure you need.

  2. In the Choose an owner dropdown menu, choose your organization.

  3. Name the repository .github-private and write a brief description.

  4. In the visibility dropdown menu, click Private.

    • Organization members will still be able to use custom agents stored in this repository, regardless of whether they have direct access to the repository itself. Keeping the repository private also avoids conflicts with other features that require .github-private to be private, such as the organization member-only profile README.
    • If you want organization members to view and collaborate on the agent profiles directly, consider using a .github repository with Internal visibility. If you are an open source organization and want to share the custom agents publicly, select Public visibility.

  5. Click Create repository.

  6. Update the template README. Include any creation guidelines for custom agents or compliance considerations specific to your organization.

Next steps

To trial custom agents, see Testing and releasing custom agents in your organization or enterprise.