GitHub Copilot adds Claude Haiku 5.5, local sandboxing, and multi-account support

What happened

GitHub published weekly updates to Copilot across multiple products and tiers. The changes focus on expanding model availability, improving security controls for AI agents, and making it easier to work across different accounts and local development environments. All changes are available to Copilot Pro, Pro+, Max, Business, and Enterprise users.

Key new capabilities

Claude Haiku 5.5 is now available across all Copilot subscription tiers. Local sandboxing, which restricts agent access to files, networks, and credentials, has moved to general availability in Copilot CLI, the Copilot app, and VS Code sessions using Agent Host. This security feature is included with Copilot at no additional cost.

The Copilot app now supports using separate GitHub accounts for your Copilot license and your repositories. This is particularly useful for developers who hold an enterprise-provided Copilot license while accessing repositories through a different personal or organizational account. GitHub Copilot CLI has simplified local model selection with a /model command that discovers supported models from a running local Ollama instance, displaying them alongside configured models and cloud models provided by GitHub Copilot.

VS Code improvements

GitHub Copilot in VS Code version 1.141 adds new capabilities for agent management and disk space optimization. Users can now view agent sessions side by side in the Agents window and arrange them in a grid format, making it easier to compare results or monitor multiple parallel tasks. A new 'Open worktree cleanup' feature in chat displays how much disk space inactive session worktrees occupy, allowing developers to free up space by selecting which worktrees to remove.

What to do

Users already on Copilot Pro or higher tiers will have access to Claude Haiku 5.5 and local sandboxing without action required. To use the new Copilot app multi-account feature, download or update the latest version of the Copilot app. To discover local Ollama models in Copilot CLI, ensure you have a local Ollama instance running and use the /model command within your existing workflow. VS Code users should update to version 1.141 to access the new agent session comparison and worktree cleanup tools.

Why it matters

Local sandboxing provides developers and enterprises with controls needed to safely deploy AI agents in restricted environments, limiting the scope of accidental or malicious access. Multi-account support in the Copilot app resolves a practical friction point for organizations that provision Copilot licenses centrally while maintaining separate repository access controls. Local model discovery in CLI streamlines workflows for developers who run models on-device or prefer hybrid model approaches, eliminating context switches between terminals and documentation.

Source

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