Tim from the Copilot coding agent team here. We've now disabled these tips in pull requests created by or touched by Copilot, so you won't see this happen again for future PRs.

We've been including product tips in PRs created by Copilot coding agent. The goal was to help developers learn new ways to use the agent in their workflow. But hearing the feedback here, and on reflection, this was the wrong judgement call. We won't do something like this again.

> We've now disabled these tips in pull requests created by or touched by Copilot, so you won't see this happen again for future PRs.

It's appreciated, but these weren't tips, these were ads. Tips are "Save time with keyboard shortcuts" or "Check out the latest features under 'Whats New' in the help menu!" When you name other products, that's an ad.

> We won't do something like this again.

Microsoft has been pulling user hostile crap for decades, so either "we" or "like this" (or both) is probably not super accurate. ;)

Just to add to the feedback.

No one, anywhere, ever wants this or anything like it. Do not inject anything that is outside of the context of the session, ever.

This is how you get your software banned at large companies.

Question for you, did anyone on the team really not push back? Does the team really think anyone wants ads in their copilot output? If the answer to both of these is no, you have a team full of yes men, not actual developers.

Wait! I think most people missed your "touched by Copilot" disclaimer.

Over on twitter, someone from MS said that Copilot can modify PRs simply because they were mentioned?

I've been using GitHub since it was new and heavily rely on coding agents for development, but that's an insanely large security hole. There's clearly confusion about what copilot is and is not able to edit elsewhere in this thread.

I'm backing up old repos now, and am no longer trusting your service as an archive. I'm wondering if the world needs to fork things like npm and vs code to save itself from the supply chain attacks these sort of product management decisions will enable.

I already moved active development elsewhere when you dropped below three nines back in 2024-2025.

> The goal was to help developers

Is Microsoft receiving payments for these?

> We won't do something like this again.

This has just as much value as when an LLM claims it won't make a certain mistake again, and for exactly the same reason.

> We've been including product tips in PRs created by Copilot coding agent

If the PR is wholly authored by Copilot I get the spirit of this, although maybe not the best implementation. And "tips" like this that look like an ad for a product _definitely_ feel like an enshittification betrayal of the user, even if it was a genuine recommendation and not a paid advertisement.

In the OP's situation, where where Copilot was summoned to fix some thing within a human-authored PR, irrelevant modification of the PR description to insert unrelated content is specifically egregious. Copilot can easily include the tip in its own comment, so I'm curious why it was decided to edit the description of a PR instead.

Thank you, Tim.

You should gather together your team and look through the responses to this thread together. There are a lot of emotions in these comments, but it could be a very constructive experience if you're able to put that aside. I'm sure you're aware that customer-sentiment toward Github has been poor lately, but these commenters are your customers. I believe Github has the potential to win back loyalty, but it will require a deeper understanding of your customer segment.

Tip: tomatoes are on offer at Contoso now!

(Now imagine this edited into the post you just made for a more-apt comparison)

If you do work at MS, I cannot believe any person involved legit thought it was "just a tip and nobody will mind their posts being edited to include product recommendations". I don't know what other parts of your comment are honest if the core statement is false

I’m curious how the decision to include ads like this was made. Is that something you can share?

Whoever did this must have realised the users will hate it. So… is this just demonstrating that the internal culture emphasises other things than user happiness?

I also note that ”for PRs” - will we see these appearing as comments in generated code?

"We won't do something like this again"

Sureeeeee

I know this is not the right place for this but if there's any chance you could send this link to someone internal at Github who knows how to fix this, that would be awesome! https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/70577

It's only semi-related in that it's a similar string thats appearing in millions of repos due to a Github feature change, but it's now polluting Google search results with tons of duplicate URLs unnecessarily. Issue has 100+ votes but has been entirely ignored by Github team.

Hi Tim,

I see that you're a product manager at GitHub. Can you explain why you thought this feature was value-added?

We don’t like ads, my man. There are too many MBAs in that company now. MBA holders lose contact with reality about halfway through that degree. Do not listen to them. They will destroy any product they touch if given enough time.

Thank you for listening.

Can I get that in writing in the ToS/EULA please?

Who approved this dumbaz move? It’s clearly an Ad and calling it a tip is insulting

Shockingly poor judgment.

For what it's worth, I appreciate that you took the time to address the issue and respond here, Tim.

Huge miss. Again. And again. And again.

WE won't see it happen again ... UNTIL IT DOES! You guys are disingenuous actors. Bad faith and all that.

See, what I expect is that you or someone on your team will move on internally, and then all promises made will be not just forgotten, but tossed aside with relief. Because this is The Way within MS now. All projects are just fodder for your CV, and when you get that paybump/position you want some other completely unscrupulous actor will join and implement the same. exact. thing.

Edit: Wow this is a shitshow. It's almost like you dumb fuckers have burned up ALL THE GOODWILL YOU HAD LEFT.

You may not want to do it, but will Microslop leadership agree? I don’t think this problem can be solved while leadership is focused only on adding more slop.

“We won’t do something like this again”

A verifiable claim! I put it at 75% you totally will, but if any manifolders think I’m full of it it should converge to something less cynical

https://manifold.markets/HastingsGreer/will-microsoft-copilo...

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> But hearing the feedback here, and on reflection, this was the wrong judgement call

Hi Tim.. Why is there no pushback from grounded individuals against these decisions ?

Hi Tim, it's Jim, your manager. Please stick to the officially released statement:

"We tried to put ads in our product and it made people upset, upon realizing that this has angered our already paying users, we realize we should try again in a month. We're also aware GitHub is down, and are doing our best to deliver you a single 9 of reliability"

This helps us establish a strong, cohesive brand image inline with what customers of GitHub expect.

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Edit: I don't mean anything bad to Tim here, seems like a nice guy with good technical experience, etc. Rather, I'm expressing the almost comical extent to which I and - to the best of my understanding - many other community members see GitHub in a very negative light now, being unreliable and, as the article points out, enshitified. So, this is at GitHub, Not Tim, it's just addressed to him for the bit.

Tim, I do actually appreciate you responding to this thread and if you do have the power to make things better, using that power to do so.

> We won't do something like this again.

It's like you hiding shorts on youtube.

For some reason I don't believe you. When you do things like this, you lose trust. Work to get it back

> We won't do something like this again.

it won't be an ad. It won't be a tip. It will be a suggestion! Recommendation! Opportunity!

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