GitHub Copilot Hands-on Labs

This repository contains a GitHub Copilot workshop created by Microsoft Germany Cloud Solution Architects. It helps customers get hands-on experience with Copilot across everyday coding, test generation, API clients, agentic workflows, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) scenarios.

What is in this repo?

Path	Purpose
docs/	Published MkDocs workshop content. Start here when delivering or previewing the workshop.
labs/	Starter code, sample projects, and supporting lab instructions.
mkdocs.yml	MkDocs Material site configuration and navigation.
.github/workflows/deploy-mkdocs.yml	GitHub Pages deployment workflow for the docs site.

Workshop content

The workshop is designed to be flexible. Trainers can run a short introduction with one or two fundamentals labs, or a longer session that includes agentic and MCP scenarios.

Area	Labs
Fundamentals	HTML Image Gallery, Rock Paper Scissors
API clients	Star Wars API in Python, Star Wars API in Java
Agentic workflows and MCP	HTML Image Gallery with MCP, Build Your Own MCP Server, Four in a Row MCP Game
Extended resources	External labs linked from the "Other Labs" page

Prerequisites

Participants need:

• A GitHub account with GitHub Copilot access.
• Visual Studio Code with the GitHub Copilot extension enabled.
• Git installed locally, or access to GitHub Codespaces.
• Runtime dependencies for the selected lab, for example Python, Java and Maven, Node.js, Docker, or .NET.

Some MCP labs also require a GitHub personal access token and explicit tool approval in Copilot Chat.

Preview the workshop locally

Install MkDocs Material and start the local preview server:

python -m pip install mkdocs-material
mkdocs serve

Then open the local URL printed by MkDocs. Before publishing documentation changes, run:

mkdocs build --strict

Working from a fork

Use your fork for changes and target the Azure-Samples repository when opening a pull request.

git remote add upstream https://github.com/Azure-Samples/github-copilot-hands-on.git
git fetch upstream
git checkout -b <your-branch> upstream/main
# make changes
git push origin <your-branch>

Open the pull request with:

• Base repository: Azure-Samples/github-copilot-hands-on
• Base branch: main
• Head repository: your fork
• Compare branch: your feature branch

Keeping the workshop current

GitHub Copilot changes quickly. Keep volatile topics link-first: explain how to choose a model, mode, or tool at a high level, then link to the official documentation for the latest details.

Useful references:

• GitHub Copilot documentation
• AI model comparison for GitHub Copilot
• GitHub Changelog
• VS Code AI documentation