GitHub previews letting Copilot's code review count as a required approval

Until now, Copilot's review comments were advisory. With the preview switched on, an approval from Copilot is treated like a human reviewer's under a repository's merge rules, so it can help satisfy a required-approvals policy. GitHub said Copilot will not approve pull requests unless an administrator enables the feature.

Controls exist at three levels. Enterprise and organization owners can allow or forbid the behavior, and repository administrators can choose which file paths Copilot may approve. A Copilot approval does not survive later changes: pushing new commits dismisses it, as happens with a human reviewer's approval. Copilot also posts an approval assessment in its review comments, and GitHub said that assessment on its own does not count toward merge requirements.

The preview is open to Copilot Pro, Pro+, Max, Business and Enterprise plans. The change moves an AI reviewer from making suggestions to holding a formal say in whether code merges, so teams that enable it may want to check how it interacts with their branch protection and audit rules.