ADO Codespaces

ado-codespaces lets a Copilot session supervise Azure DevOps coding agents in GitHub Codespaces. The extension starts one local supervisor process and exposes tools to manage Codespaces and the agents running inside them.

Prerequisites

A current GitHub Copilot CLI release with plugin extension support.
Node.js 22.18 or later for development and building from source.
GitHub CLI with the ado-codespaces extension installed and authenticated.
gh ado-codespaces agent serve must be available in the shell where Copilot starts.

After installing, call codespaces_list to start the supervisor and verify it. The tool returns the startup error when GitHub CLI, its extension, or authentication is unavailable.

The supervisor handles Azure authentication, Codespaces lifecycle, agent execution, and transport to a Codespace. This plugin does not implement those operations.

Install

copilot plugin marketplace add scaryrawr/scarypilot
copilot plugin install ado-codespaces@scarypilot

Restart Copilot or run /clear after installing or updating the plugin.

Usage

Ask Copilot to list or inspect Codespaces, start one when needed, then start an agent with a task. The extension registers these tools:

Tool	Operation
`codespaces_list`	List available Codespaces.
`codespaces_status`	Read one Codespace's status.
`codespaces_start`	Start one Codespace.
`codespaces_stop`	Stop one Codespace.
`agent_start`	Start an agent in a Codespace.
`agent_send`	Send a follow-up prompt to an agent.
`agent_status`	Read one agent's status.
`agent_stop`	Stop one agent.
`agent_events`	Drain ordered output events for an agent.

Start an agent with its agent_id and Codespace name. Send its task with agent_send. agent_start does not grant broad permissions by default. Set approve_all_permissions to true only when you want the agent to act without individual permission prompts. State that choice in the request. Keep it false or omit it for normal work.

The tools return concise JSON. agent_events returns remote agent output in sequence order. It reports dropped-event metadata when the bounded local buffer overflows. The extension never puts event content in the Copilot session log. When the Copilot session ends, it asks the supervisor to shut down and then terminates the child process if it remains alive. This cleanup uses the normal SDK shutdown event and does not register permission-gated session hooks.

Develop and test

cd plugins/ado-codespaces/extensions/ado-codespaces
npm install
npm run build
npm run format:check
npm run lint
npm run typecheck
npm test

Copilot CLI injects its bundled @github/copilot-sdk when it loads the extension. The committed dist/ bundle includes other runtime dependencies; plugin users do not need npm install or a build. Run the build in a source checkout after changing the extension and commit the bundle and manifest.

scaryrawr/ado-codespaces