Desktop app: Add ability to pick BYOK/configured models for background agents
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- Dominant language
- Shell
- Stars
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- Forks
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- Avg merge
- 14h 16m
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 6
Description
Describe the feature or problem you'd like to solve
Background agents in GitHub Copilot Desktop currently run using an automatically selected model, and users cannot override or choose a different one.
Proposed solution
Add model-selection control to the desktop app’s settings in a dedicated background agents tab in to assign models to each background agent. This would bring the desktop app to parity with VSCode, where the Explore Agent's model can be set by going to GitHub › Copilot › Chat › Explore Agent: Model
Example prompts or workflows
No response
Additional context
This request is related to Issue #4178, which focuses on showing the effective model used by background agents.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
The issue names no implementation files or tests. Start by locating the desktop app's settings and background-agent configuration, then compare the requested control with VSCode's GitHub › Copilot › Chat › Explore Agent: Model setting and review Issue #4178. Done means users can assign configured or BYOK models to each background agent from a dedicated settings tab.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- vscode
- Domain
- desktop, developer-experience
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Quiet
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100