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Workshop Setup

To complete this workshop you will need Visual Studio 2026, the .NET 10 SDK, and a GitHub account with access to GitHub Copilot.

Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure you have:

  • Visual Studio 2026 with the GitHub Copilot extension installed
  • .NET 10 SDK installed
  • GitHub account with one of the following:

Tip

If you don't have GitHub Copilot yet, you can sign up for Copilot Free or start a free trial of Copilot Pro.

Install .github + MCP Extension

Before we begin, let's install the .github + MCP extension for Visual Studio. This extension provides access to GitHub MCP servers which we will use later in the lab.

  1. [] Open Visual Studio 2026
  2. [] Go to Extensions -> Manage Extensions
  3. [] Search for .github + MCP in the search box
  4. [] Click Install on the .github + MCP extension by Mads Kristensen
  5. [] Restart Visual Studio if prompted

Tip

You can also install this extension from the Visual Studio Marketplace. The .github + MCP extension is important because it provides the Node.js runtime required by some MCP servers, which you'll use in Part 9 of this lab.

Sign in to GitHub Copilot

  1. [] Open your browser and go to https://github.com.
  2. [] Sign in with your GitHub account or create a new account if you don't have one.
  3. [] Open Visual Studio 2026.
  4. [] Select Continue without code. If prompted to sign-in, you can click Close.
  5. [] Click the Copilot icon on the top bar (left side next to the search input box).
  6. [] Click Sign in to use Copilot.
  7. [] A browser window will open prompting you to sign in to GitHub and authorize Visual Studio and Copilot. Complete the sign-in and click Authorize when prompted.
  8. [] When the browser shows the confirmation, click Open to return to Visual Studio.
  9. [] After setup you should see the GitHub Copilot Walkthrough tab and the Copilot button should be green.

Note

For the hands-on lab exercises that create or modify repository data via cloud agents (Part 12), you'll need to fork the lab repo into your own account. This gives the cloud agent permissions to operate on your fork.

Turn on Copilot Settings

  1. [] Ensure Code Completions and Next Edit Suggestions are enabled:

    • Go to the Code Completions settings in Visual Studio by heading to Tools -> Options -> Text Editor -> Code Completions
    • Ensure Copilot Completions is checked.
    • Ensure Copilot Next Edit Suggestions is checked.

  2. [] Head to Tools -> Options -> GitHub -> Copilot -> Copilot Chat and ensure the following settings are enabled:

    • Enable Planning
    • Enable View Plan Execution
    • Enable Copilot Coding agent (Preview)

Clone Lab Repository

For the full experience—especially if you plan to delegate tasks to cloud agents or allow Copilot to create issues and push changes—fork the repository to your own GitHub account and clone your fork.

  1. [] In your browser, go to https://github.com/dotnet-presentations/visual-studio-github-copilot-lab and click Fork to create a fork under your GitHub account.
  2. [] In Visual Studio, click File -> Clone Repository.
  3. [] Enter the URL of your fork (for example https://github.com/<your-username>/visual-studio-github-copilot-lab) and press Clone.

If you prefer not to fork, you can still clone the upstream repository directly:

  1. [] In Visual Studio, click File -> Clone Repository.
  2. [] Enter https://github.com/dotnet-presentations/visual-studio-github-copilot-lab and press Clone.

The code is now opened in Visual Studio. Feel free to take a look at it or skip to the next section to start the app.

Start the App

  1. [] Open the Solution Explorer from the View -> Solution Explorer menu.

  2. [] Set the TinyShop.AppHost as the startup project if it isn't already by right-clicking on TinyShop.AppHost and selecting Set as Startup Project. Start the project with F5 or Debug -> Start Debugging from the menu.

    The .NET Aspire AppHost will start two applications and the .NET Aspire Dashboard:

  3. [] Stop debugging and close the application.

Summary and Next Steps

You've now set up your environment and cloned the repository you'll use for the rest of the workshop. Let's start exploring GitHub Copilot!

Next: Part 00 - Exploring the Codebase