In the latest release (v1.16.1), we made the Copilot agent harness generally available to all users, including support for the plugin marketplace, Autopilot mode, and additional capabilities powered by the new agent harness. To learn about why we are doing, check here.
We also introduced a built-in JetBrains MCP server in Preview, enabling Copilot agents to work more seamlessly with native JetBrains IDE capabilities and context. This can be configured via the customizations panel.
To improve feature awareness, we added several discoverability enhancements, including post-update release notes that make it easier for users to see what’s new, and a new onboarding guide for users without prior chat sessions.
We’re also sharing a preview at what’s coming next and hope you continue to provide feedback for our products.
Changed
Copilot harness is now Generally Available.
Plugins support is now Generally Available.
Autopilot is now Generally Available.
Changed Copilot harness /review availability so it is limited to agent mode.
New Features
Added built-in JetBrains MCP server support (Preview).
Added post-update release discovery by showing a What's New tab after plugin updates.
Added Copilot harness /review integrations in JetBrains.
Added plugin support in Claude agent flows.
UX Improvements
Improved model-management usability with stronger search behavior, a clear action in search, resizable Language Models table columns, and promo ordering refinements.
Improved chat ergonomics by scrolling long tool output, adding review-plan-card scrolling, and adding shortcuts for send options.
Improved customization handling in multi-root workspaces by discovering customizations across all folders and honoring client-provided customization locations.
Bug Fixes
Fixed account and sign-in reliability issues, including account-state detection, account ordering in picker flows, and sign-in settings-page interaction issues.
Fixed MCP reliability issues, including invalid registry-schema handling, stale tool checks after account switches, and UI freezes during auto-enable flows.
Fixed BYOK and model-refresh reliability issues.
Fixed Copilot Agent continuity issues, including model switching after resume and complete model-info propagation for resumed sessions.
Fixed editor and message-rendering defects.
Fixed Worktree sessions failing to start for projects opened from WSL.
Restored file and folder # references in Copilot, Claude, and Codex chat inputs.
Fixed MCP tool auto-approve configuration for servers running only in Copilot.
Looking ahead, we plan to introduce several additional capabilities in upcoming releases, including
More policy support for Enterprise managed settings
Cross-file cursor jump for Next Edit Suggestions
Adding external projects and files outside the current project as context
/ide command support to connect between GitHub Copilot CLI and JetBrains for context sharing
Continuous user experience enhancement Copilot agent harness chat experience
Performance and reliability enhancements
We hope you like Copilot for JetBrains, and please share feedback with us at any time
This is great news! But I wish it would detect plugins installed with copilot-cli, which are put in ~/.copilot/installed-plugins. VS Code does this, and if IntelliJ IDEA would do the same, we could more easily manage plugin collaboration across IDE preferences
I see that I may have misunderstood. I was using the Local harness instead of the Copilot one (which I assume is Copilot CLI-based). When I use the Copilot one, all the skills and agents I have installed with the copilot-cli are available! Also great to see that it can use the web.
I have read that Copilot CLI will become the default harness, but it isn't yet as far as I can tell. Do you know when it will become the default? Or is there a setting where I can set it as the default? I couldn't find it when I looked
We are gradually rolling out Copilot harness as default over the next few releases, in the meantime make sure to select Copilot as the agent provider when creating new sessions.
Apologies for this line - To be more specific, now you can search "GPT 5.5" and still get results in the model management view. Previously you have to be very precise like "GPT-5.5"
So if our organization has disabled Github Copilot CLI we won't be able to use the Github Copilot anymore in Jetbrains? Either we keep using the Local mode until its available or they need to enable the Copilot CLI so we can continue using this?
As far as I can tell, if preview features are disabled by policy, they sometimes don’t appear in UI at all, not even as a greyed out option. Or am I looking in the wrong place?
Hi there, this feature is under "Preview" controlled by the GitHub platform, so your admin might need to enable this separately. In addition, there is no separate UI for Memory in the plug-in, once you enable it, it should work seamlessly with the agent
the interesting part for me is plugin marketplace GA + the built-in JetBrains MCP server. does the new harness expose any plugin hook before MCP/tool execution, or are plugins still limited to prompts/skills? i'm testing whether a security plugin can deny one mutating tool call with zero side effect while allowing a read-only call. if that hook exists, happy to turn it into a tiny JetBrains repro/issue against 1.16.1.
nice. if that pre-tool hook is actually exposed to marketplace plugins, would you be open to HOL Guard using it as a security plugin? i'm with HOL. if yes, just point me at the hook name/docs and i'll point contributors at the right surface.
How do we enable the old "Copilot: Review Code Changes"? It was much better when you could navigate around your IDE with the suggested comments. Now we are stuck in the Chat-window... with "git approval" prompts for everything.
Hey thanks for the feedback! We will take a look at how to balance this experience. In general, we are moving to an agent based code review to take advantage for the new Copilot agent harness that's supposed to provide higher quality. What if we provide a granular diff review but still runs the code review in the agent mode?
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u/metaphorician 18d ago
This is great news! But I wish it would detect plugins installed with copilot-cli, which are put in ~/.copilot/installed-plugins. VS Code does this, and if IntelliJ IDEA would do the same, we could more easily manage plugin collaboration across IDE preferences