BMad Method Guide for GitHub Copilot

For the complete workflow, see the BMad Workflow Guide.

Installation

When running npx bmad-method install, select GitHub Copilot as your IDE. This command will perform the following actions:

.bmad-core/ folder with all agents, tasks, templates and other data files
Creates the .vscode/ directory and add a settings.json file if it does not already exist, and add the basic configuration to enable GitHub Copilot's agent mode.
Creates a chatmodes file under your .github folder for each specific agent being added

Open GitHub Copilot chat in VS Code (⌃⌘I on Mac, Ctrl+Alt+I on Windows/Linux).
Select the agent you want to use from the chat input's participant selector (e.g., @workspace > dev).
The agent adopts that persona for the conversation.
Use *help to see the commands available for the selected agent.

You can switch between agents using the chat participant selector. The following agents are available for GitHub Copilot:

Settings: Use the .vscode/settings.json file to configure Copilot behavior. The installer can configure these for you.
- chat.agent.maxRequests: Maximum requests per agent session (recommended: 15).
- github.copilot.chat.agent.runTasks: Allow agents to run workspace tasks (e.g., from package.json scripts).
- github.copilot.chat.agent.autoFix: Enable automatic error detection and fixing in generated code.
- chat.tools.autoApprove: Auto-approve ALL tools without confirmation (use with caution).
VS Code integration: Works within VS Code's GitHub Copilot chat panel.
Tool Confirmation: Copilot will ask for confirmation before running tools that can modify files. You can approve a tool once, for the session, or always.

You can use a .github/copilot-instructions.md file to provide additional context or instructions for your projects that are not covered by the BMAD framework.
BMAD agents can come with a pre-configured set of tools. You can see which tools an agent uses by looking at the tools section in its .github/chatmodes/[agent].chatmode.md file.