Use of Copilot as a developer tool within GitHub Enterprise for VA engineering teams and partners

## Use of Copilot as a developer tool within GitHub Enterprise for VA developer teams and partners
Michael Nau, zCore Group
2023-07-28

### GitHub Copilot: AI-enabled Pair Programming 

GitHub Copilot is an embedded "AI pair programmer" developed and owned by GitHub and released in July of 2021. Copilot is a developer tool that enables developers to "write better code" by leveraging the corpus of open-source code repositories at GitHub and an implementation of OpenAI Codex, a deep-learning language model, fine-tuned on a large curated dataset of programming languages. Copilot is licensed exclusively to Microsoft, the parent company of GitHub (See <https://github.blog/2021-06-29-introducing-github-copilot-ai-pair-programmer/>, and <https://github.com/features/copilot/>).

Copilot is available in all versions of Microsoft's IDE, Visual Studio Code ("VS Code," "VSC", hereafter). Developers using VS Code may choose to enable Copilot by linking their GitHub or GitHub Enterprise credentials and leverage the features described above to write code faster, to prompt for code patterns, for debugging, for code explanation, and code snippet completion. Independent research demonstrated developers working on JavaScript tasks completed their work 55.8% faster than control groups (Peng et al, 2023). A survey of 2000 developers by GitHub found that developers self-reported increased productivity, satisfaction, and experienced less mental-fatigue since including Copilot in their tooling and workflow (See <https://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2022/09/13/copilot-impact.aspx>, original source here: <https://github.blog/2022-09-07-research-quantifying-github-copilots-impact-on-developer-productivity-and-happiness/>) 

By leveraging Copilot as part of GitHub Enterprise, GitHub, and VS Code, developers across engineering units at zCore Group and its partners experience similar levels of productivity and output that exceeds workflows without use of Copilot. Copilot, like other AI/ML/LLM tools, has quickly become part of the software engineer's toolset and has already, in just two years, become a mature technology integration in the standard, approved developer environment of VS Code, GitHub, and GitHub Enterprise.

### Copilot and GitHub at the VA: VA Technical Reference Model v 23.7

For the status of GitHub Enterprise at the VA TRM, refer to:

Reference in TRM v23.7 (<https://www.oit.va.gov/Services/TRM/ToolPage.aspx?tid=9533&tab=2>)
- GitHub Enterprise and its included tools are "Approved with Constraints" (10, 13, 14) 
10. Users must ensure that VMWare is implemented with VA-approved baselines. (refer to the ‘Category’ tab under ‘Runtime Dependencies’)
13. Due to potential information security risks for cloud-based technologies, users should coordinate closely with their facility ISSO for guidance and assistance on cloud products. If further guidance is needed contact the Enterprise Cloud Solution Office (ECSO), which is the body responsible for new software development in and migration of existing systems to the VA Enterprise Cloud (VAEC) and ensuring organizational information, Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Protected Health Information (PHI), and VA sensitive data are not compromised within the VAEC. For information about Software as a Service (SaaS) products or to submit a SaaS product request with the VA OIT Product Engineering team, please use their online form. (Ref: VA Directive 6004, VA Directive 6517, VA Directive 6513 and VA Directive 6102).
14. Due to National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) identified security vulnerabilities, extra vigilance should be applied to ensure the versions remain properly patched to mitigate known and future vulnerabilities. The local ISSO (Information System Security Officer) can provide assistance in reviewing the NIST vulnerabilities.

Further documentation of the use of Copilot at the VA is given here in an excerpt from DigitalVA's Enterprise Design Patterns publication from the Office of the Chief Technology Officer: 
	"Copilot – GitHub’s artificial intelligence (AI) pair programmer that uses contextual prompts to generate entire blocks of code using the OpenAI 	 Generative AI models. This tool is maintained by GitHub and support is provided by GitHub Enterprise Support and the GitHub Expert Services 	  
	 team." ("VA GitHub Technology Standard," 2023, p. 2)

Works Cited

"VA GitHub Technology Standard." (2023, July 28). Retrieved from <https://digital.va.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/VA-GitHub-Technology-Standard.docx>

Peng, S., Kalliamvakou, E., Cihon, P., & Demirer, M. (2023). The impact of ai on developer productivity: Evidence from github copilot. arXiv preprint arXiv:2302.06590. <https://arxiv.org/pdf/2302.06590.pdf>
use-of-copilot-va-for-pws-nau.txt