[copilot-session-insights] Daily Copilot Agent Session Analysis — 2026-02-20

[github-actions[bot]]

This is run #134 of the Copilot Session Insights workflow, capturing agent activity from 2026-02-20. This is the first run with available session data, so no historical baseline or trend comparison is possible yet — subsequent runs will enable multi-day trend analysis.

⚠️ Conversation logs were not available for this run. Analysis is based on GitHub Actions workflow run metadata only. Behavioral insights will be richer in future runs once conversation transcripts are available.

---

Executive Summary

• Sessions Analyzed: 50 workflow runs (across 5 active Copilot branches)
• Analysis Period: 2026-02-20, 22:04–22:17 UTC (13-minute burst)
• Actual Coding Agent Sessions: 4 (8% of total)
• Coding Agent Success Rate: 100% of completed sessions (2 of 2 completed; 2 still in progress)
• Experimental Strategy: None (standard analysis only — random value: 88/100, threshold: <30)

---

Key Metrics

Metric	Value	Notes
Total Workflow Runs	50	All from 2026-02-20
Completed	48 (96%)	2 in progress at capture
Successful (any type)	4 (8.3%)	Doc builds + coding agents
Action Required	38 (79.2%)	Expected for review bots
Skipped	5 (10.4%)	Conditional branch checks
Failed	1 (2.1%)	CI on copilot/support-multiple-pull-requests
Actual Coding Sessions	4	Copilot agent + PR comment responses
Review Bot Runs	44	~11 bots per Copilot PR push
Avg Duration (all)	0.62 min	Skewed by near-instant review bots
Max Duration	9.53 min	PR #17296 comment response

---

📈 Session Trends Analysis

Completion Patterns

The dominant outcome is action_required (76%), which is expected behavior for automated review bots — it signals content for human review rather than a failure. Only 4 runs conclude as success: 2 Doc Build/Deploy pipelines and 2 completed coding agent sessions. One CI pipeline failure was detected on copilot/support-multiple-pull-requests. Both coding agent sessions that completed were fully successful.

Duration & Efficiency

Coding agent sessions (4.6 and 9.5 minutes) are substantially longer than review bots (~0 min, near-instant). The 9.5-minute session addressed a complex, multi-file change (356 additions, 111 deletions, 13 files). The 4.6-minute session handled a more contained refactor (89 additions, 84 deletions, 6 files). Duration appears correlated with task complexity.

---

Active Copilot Branches & Sessions

View Active Copilot PRs and Their Sessions

PR #17302 — Fix validation consistency across all safe output types

• Branch: copilot/review-tools-and-validation-json
• Author: Copilot, State: Draft/Open
• Changes: 152 additions, 9 deletions, 4 files
• Coding session: "Running Copilot coding agent" — in_progress at capture time
• Review runs triggered: 8 (Scout, Q, /cloclo, Archie, AI Moderator, Content Moderation, PR Nitpick Reviewer + 1 in_progress)
• Description: Fixed 7 missing ValidationConfig entries and diverged safe_outputs_tools.json files

PR #17296 — Route model to engine via native CLI environment variables

• Branch: copilot/add-model-env-var
• Author: Copilot, State: Draft/Open
• Changes: 356 additions, 111 deletions, 13 files, 4 commits
• Coding sessions: "Addressing comment on PR Route model to engine via native CLI environment variables #17296" — 1x success (9.53 min), 1x in_progress
• Review runs triggered: 12 (multiple trigger cycles)
• Description: Routes model to engines via native env vars (COPILOT_MODEL, ANTHROPIC_MODEL, GEMINI_MODEL) to support GitHub Actions expression syntax in model config

PR #17286 — Make assign-to-agent and create-agent-session safe-output types repository-aware ✅ Merged

• Branch: copilot/update-safe-output-types
• Author: Copilot, State: Closed
• Changes: 89 additions, 84 deletions, 6 files, 2 commits
• Coding session: "Addressing comment on PR Make assign-to-agent and create-agent-session safe-output types repository-aware #17286" — success (4.57 min)
• Review runs triggered: 7 (Scout, /cloclo, Q, PR Nitpick Reviewer, Grumpy Code Reviewer, Security Review Agent + successful agent)
• Description: Fixed partial/inconsistent repo handling in assign-to-agent and create-agent-session step builders

Branch: copilot/fix-enum-violations-timeout-validation

• Runs triggered: 19 (highest volume — 2 full trigger cycles)
• Conclusions: All action_required or skipped
• Notable: No active "Addressing comment" runs in the captured window; review bots ran twice (push + re-push)

PR #17284 — Support multiple create-pull-request and push-to-pull-request-branch

• Branch: copilot/support-multiple-pull-requests
• CI result: FAILURE — CI workflow failed
• Doc Build: Success (2.0 min)
• Note: CI failure on this branch warrants investigation

---

Success Factors

1. Clear, scoped task descriptions: Both successful coding sessions had well-defined PR comment prompts. PR Make assign-to-agent and create-agent-session safe-output types repository-aware #17286 ("make safe-output types repository-aware") produced a focused refactor with near-equal additions/deletions (89/84), suggesting targeted changes rather than sprawl.

2. Task complexity correlates with duration: PR Route model to engine via native CLI environment variables #17296 (complex: env var routing across 3 engines + constants) took 9.53 min and produced 356 additions. PR Make assign-to-agent and create-agent-session safe-output types repository-aware #17286 (refactor: repo handling) took 4.57 min and produced 89 additions. Duration is a reasonable proxy for task scope.

3. Review bot ecosystem is healthy: 44 review runs fired across 5 branches, all within seconds of pushes — the automated review infrastructure is responsive and consistent.

---

Failure Signals

1. CI failure on copilot/support-multiple-pull-requests: The CI workflow failed (3.3 min runtime) while the Doc Build passed. This suggests a test or build issue introduced by the PR changes, not a flaky environment failure.

2. Duplicate review bot cycles: copilot/fix-enum-violations-timeout-validation and copilot/add-model-env-var each show 2 complete cycles of review bots, likely from multiple pushes. This increases noise in the session data.

3. In-progress sessions at capture time: 2 sessions were still running when data was captured, creating incomplete data. Future captures should account for sessions that span capture boundaries.

---

Tool Usage Patterns

View Agent Distribution Details

Agent	Count	Category	Typical Conclusion
Scout	8	Review Bot	action_required
/cloclo	7	Review Bot	action_required
Q	7	Review Bot	action_required
PR Nitpick Reviewer	7	Review Bot	action_required
Archie	4	Review Bot	action_required
Doc Build - Deploy	3	Infrastructure	success
Security Review Agent	3	Review Bot	action_required
Grumpy Code Reviewer	3	Review Bot	action_required
CI	2	Infrastructure	1 success, 1 failure
Addressing comment on PR #17296	2	Coding Agent	1 success, 1 in_progress
AI Moderator	1	Review Bot	action_required
Content Moderation	1	Review Bot	action_required
Running Copilot coding agent	1	Coding Agent	in_progress
Addressing comment on PR #17286	1	Coding Agent	success

Review bot multiplier: Each Copilot branch push triggers approximately 7–9 review agents simultaneously.

---

Prompt Quality Analysis

⚠️ Without conversation logs, prompt quality assessment is inferred from PR metadata and outcomes only.

Inferred High-Quality Prompt Characteristics (from successful sessions)

• Specific, actionable requests: "Addressing comment on PR Make assign-to-agent and create-agent-session safe-output types repository-aware #17286" — the PR body clearly described the problem (undocumented env vars, missing repo field support) with explicit expected behavior
• Self-contained scope: PR Make assign-to-agent and create-agent-session safe-output types repository-aware #17286 touched only 6 files with near-symmetric add/delete (89/84) — agent produced targeted changes, not sprawl
• Technical precision: PR Route model to engine via native CLI environment variables #17296 body describes the exact failure mode, expected mechanism, and includes concrete YAML examples — likely led to correct implementation

Potential Improvement Areas

• Capturing agent prompts: Without conversation logs, it's impossible to evaluate the actual instructions given to the coding agent. Future runs should ensure conversation transcripts are captured.
• PR body as proxy: Well-structured PR bodies (with problem description, examples, expected behavior) appear correlated with successful outcomes.

---

Notable Observations

Loop Detection

• Loop detection was not possible without conversation logs
• 2 in-progress sessions at capture time — could indicate extended reasoning or loops, but data is insufficient

Context Issues

• Context issue detection requires conversation logs — not available this run
• No obvious signals of confusion (both completed sessions produced coherent, substantial PRs)

Discovered Behavioral Patterns

1. Batch CI Burst Pattern: Every Copilot branch push triggers simultaneous firing of 7–9 review bots within seconds, creating a burst of ~10–15 workflow runs per push.
2. action_required Dominance: 76–80% of all runs return action_required — this is expected normal behavior for review bots, not a failure signal.
3. Low Coding Agent Ratio: Only ~8% of workflow runs are actual coding agent executions; the rest are review infrastructure.
4. Complexity-Duration Correlation: Longer sessions (9.5 min) produce substantially more code changes (356 additions) than shorter sessions (4.6 min → 89 additions).

---

Actionable Recommendations

For Users Writing Task Descriptions

1. Include the specific problem description and failure mode: Both successful PRs had clear problem statements in their bodies. Prompts that describe why something is wrong (not just what to fix) appear to yield more focused changes.

   • Example: "Route model to engine via native CLI environment variables" with explicit failure scenario (GitHub Actions expression syntax failing validation) led to a correct, multi-engine implementation.

2. Reference specific files and code patterns: PRs that mention exact env var names, function names, and file paths in their descriptions likely help the agent navigate the codebase more effectively.

3. Include expected output examples: PR Route model to engine via native CLI environment variables #17296 included a YAML before/after example — this gives the agent a concrete acceptance criterion to target.

For System Improvements

1. Ensure conversation logs are captured: This run had no conversation transcript files, making behavioral analysis impossible. The logs/ directory was empty. Investigate why {session_number}-conversation.txt files weren't written.

   • Potential impact: High — enables loop detection, reasoning analysis, prompt quality scoring

2. Capture sessions across longer windows: All 50 runs fell within a 13-minute window. The analysis workflow should ideally capture sessions from the past 24 hours (or configurable window) to enable trend analysis.

   • Potential impact: High — enables meaningful trend charts and baseline establishment

3. Investigate CI failure on copilot/support-multiple-pull-requests: The CI workflow failed — this may indicate broken tests introduced by the "Support multiple pull requests" feature branch.

   • Potential impact: Medium

For Tool Development

1. Session-level tagging: It would help to distinguish coding agent sessions from review bot runs at the data capture level (rather than inferring from workflow names).

   • Frequency of need: All 134 runs
   • Use case: Cleaner metrics — current approach requires pattern-matching on workflow names

2. Duration capture for in-progress sessions: Sessions still running at capture time have no duration data. A follow-up capture or status check would improve duration statistics.

   • Frequency: 2 sessions this run

---

Statistical Summary

Total Runs Analyzed:            50
  Completed:                    48 (96.0%)
  In Progress at Capture:        2  (4.0%)

Conclusion Breakdown (completed):
  action_required:              38 (79.2%)
  success:                       4  (8.3%)
  skipped:                       5 (10.4%)
  failure:                       1  (2.1%)

Session Type Breakdown:
  Coding Agent Sessions:         4  (8.0%)
  Review Bots:                  44 (88.0%)
  Infrastructure (CI/CD):        5 (10.0%)

Coding Agent Outcomes:
  Successful (completed):        2 (100% of completed)
  In Progress:                   2
  Failed:                        0

Duration Statistics (48 completed):
  Average:                    0.62 min
  Median:                     0.00 min  (review bots near-instant)
  Max:                        9.53 min  (PR #17296 comment response)
  Coding Agent Avg:           7.05 min  (2 completed sessions)

Active Branches:                 5
  copilot/fix-enum-violations-timeout-validation:  19 runs
  copilot/add-model-env-var:                       14 runs
  copilot/review-tools-and-validation-json:         8 runs
  copilot/update-safe-output-types:                 7 runs
  copilot/support-multiple-pull-requests:           2 runs

Conversation Logs Available:     No
Historical Baseline Available:   No (first run)
Experimental Strategy:           None (standard analysis only)

---

Trends Over Time

This is the first run with session data — no historical baseline exists yet. Future runs will enable:

• Day-over-day completion rate trends
• Coding agent session volume trends
• Duration efficiency improvements over time
• Success rate correlations with prompt quality

The repo memory branch (memory/session-insights) has been initialized with today's baseline data for future comparison.

---

Next Steps

• Investigate why conversation log files were not written to session-data/logs/
• Investigate CI failure on copilot/support-multiple-pull-requests branch
• Allow the in-progress sessions (PR Fix validation consistency across all safe output types #17302 and PR Route model to engine via native CLI environment variables #17296) to complete and capture their results
• Establish multi-day trend baseline over the next 7+ runs
• Review recommendations for prompt structure guidelines with the team

---

References:

• §22243395988 — Run #134 (this analysis)
• PR #17302 — Fix validation consistency
• PR #17296 — Route model via env vars

AI generated by Copilot Session Insights

• expires on Feb 27, 2026, 10:54 PM UTC

[github-actions[bot]]

🤖 Beep boop! The smoke test agent was here!

Just dropping by to say: tests are like good coffee — they keep the bugs away ☕🐛

This message was automatically generated by the smoke test workflow.

📰 BREAKING: Report filed by Smoke Copilot