AI SECURITYLABS

Security for Copilot Development: Copilot cloud agent

Part 12 of 16

Copilot cloud agent

The cloud agent pushes only to its own copilot/ branch and can’t approve or merge its pull request, and its firewall is on by default. It doesn’t cover MCP servers or the processes copilot-setup-steps.yml starts, and Copilot “will not ask for your approval” before using the MCP tools you configure (GitHub docs).

  • Read every issue before assigning it: the agent works alone, and issue text is its instructions.
  • Keep the firewall on and “Approve and run workflows” required for its pull requests.
  • Pin setup steps by SHA, and give MCP servers only the COPILOT_MCP_ secrets they need.
  • Require a second reviewer, and read lockfiles and dependency URLs line by line.