GitHub is hosting its annual user conference, GitHub Universe, today and tomorrow, and has announced a number of new AI capabilities that will enable developers to build applications more quickly, securely, and efficiently.
Many of the updates were across GitHub Copilot. First up, GitHub announced that users now have access to more model choices thanks to partnerships with Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI. Newly added model options include Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro, and OpenAI’s GPT-4o, o1-preview, and o1-mini.
By offering developers more choices, GitHub is enabling them to choose the model that works best for their specific use case, the company explained.
“In 2024, we experienced a boom in high-quality large and small language models that each individually excel at different programming tasks. There is no one model to rule every scenario, and developers expect the agency to build with the models that work best for them,” said Thomas Dohmke, CEO of GitHub. “It is clear the next phase of AI code generation will not only be defined by multi-model functionality, but by multi-model choice. Today, we deliver just that.”
Copilot Workspace has a number of new features as well, like a build and repair agent, brainstorming mode, integrations with VS Code, and iterative feedback loops.
GitHub Models, which enables developers to experiment with different AI models, has a number of features now in public preview, including side-by-side model comparison, support for multi-modal models, the ability to save and share prompts and parameters, and additional cookbooks and SDK support in GitHub Codespaces.
Copilot Autofix, which analyzes and provides suggestions about code vulnerabilities, added security campaigns, enabling developers to triage up to 1,000 alerts at once and filter them by type, severity, repository, and team. The company also added integrations with ESLint, JFrog SAST, and Black Duck Polaris. Both security campaigns and these partner integrations are available in public preview.
Other new features in GitHub Copilot include code completion in Copilot for Xcode (in public preview), a code review capability, and the ability to customize Copilot Chat responses based on a developer’s preferred tools, organizational knowledge, and coding conventions.
In terms of what’s coming next, starting November 1, developers will be able to edit multiple files at once using Copilot Chat in VS Code. Then, in early 2025, Copilot Extensions will be generally available, enabling developers to integrate their other developer tools into GitHub Copilot, like Atlassian Rovo, Docker, Sentry, and Stack Overflow.
The company also announced a technical preview for GitHub Spark, an AI tool for building fully functional micro apps (called “sparks”) solely using text prompts. Each spark can integrate external data sources without requiring the creator to manage cloud resources.
While developers can make changes to sparks by diving into the code, any user can iterate and make changes entirely using natural language, reducing the barrier to application development.
Finished sparks can be immediately run on the user’s desktop, tablet, or mobile device, or they can share with others, who can use it or even build upon it.
“With Spark, we will enable over one billion personal computer and mobile phone users to build and share their own micro apps directly on GitHub—the creator network for the Age of AI,” said Dohmke.
And finally, the company revealed the results of its Octoverse report, which provides insights into the world of open source development by studying public activity on GitHub.
Some key findings were that Python is now the most used language on the platform, AI usage is up 98% since last year, and the number of global developers continues increasing, particularly across Africa, Latin America, and Asia.