GCD | 1/2 Day
Write better code, faster, with your AI pair programmer. This half-day course is designed to help you put GitHub Copilot to work across your real development workflow, from inline suggestions to Copilot Chat. Through live, instructor-led coding and scripted demos you can follow along with, you’ll learn to prompt Copilot effectively, generate and improve code, write tests, and apply it responsibly in your IDE of choice.
Who should take this class?
This course is for developers, software engineers, and technical team members who write code and want to work faster and smarter with an AI assistant. It’s equally valuable for tech leads, architects, and QA professionals who want to understand where Copilot fits in their team’s daily workflow. No specific language is required, since the demos span Java, Python, SQL, and more, but you’ll get the most out of the session if you’re comfortable in at least one programming language and your editor of choice. Prior experience with GitHub is helpful but not required, and having GitHub Copilot installed in VS Code lets you code right along with the instructor.
Course Content
This course progressively builds your fluency with GitHub Copilot, from understanding how it works to applying it across real coding tasks in your IDE. The instructor leads live, scripted demos in Java, Python, and SQL that you can follow along with in your own editor, or simply watch and revisit later using the courseware.
1. Understanding GitHub Copilot
- GitHub Copilot overview
- Your AI pair programmer
- How GitHub Copilot generates and delivers suggestions
- Subscriptions and plans
- IDE integration: VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains, Xcode
- Setting up Copilot in your editor
2. Coding with GitHub Copilot
- Inline code suggestions and completions
- GitHub Copilot Chat
- Prompt engineering for better results
- Generating code (Java, Python)
- Generating SQL and databases
- Code-along demos
3. Improving Code with GitHub Copilot
- Improving and refactoring existing code
- Writing SOLID code
- Generating unit tests
- Explaining and documenting legacy code
- Working with Markdown and documentation
- Code-along demos
4. GitHub Copilot in Your Workflow
- Pull requests on GitHub.com
- Reviewing pull requests with Copilot
- Privacy, safety, and responsible use
- Troubleshooting Copilot
- Tips for daily productivity
- Keeping up with Copilot’s evolution
- Code-along demos