The Copilot Connection

Ep 37 - Coding Agents

Jan 30, 2026
Garry Trinder, a Microsoft developer advocate for Microsoft 365 Copilot, explains coding agents and how they reshape development workflows. Short takes cover agent interfaces, context and memory, spec-driven vs exploratory approaches, tooling and skills for repeatable automation, effects on junior developers, personality in agents, and security and ethical guardrails.
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ADVICE

Use Agents To Speed Requirement Work

  • Keep specs for enterprise and mission-critical work; use agents to convert meeting transcripts into requirements and prototypes.
  • Use agents to accelerate requirement gathering but maintain human review and governance for critical decisions.
INSIGHT

Match Models To The Task

  • Model choice matters: code-tuned and reasoning models (e.g., Codex, Opus) enable different trade-offs in refactors and edits.
  • Teams should pick models based on task size: some excel at large refactors, others at quick iterative edits.
ADVICE

Equip Agents With Reliable Tools

  • Expose tools (MCP servers, CLI, APIs) so agents can fetch accurate project-specific data instead of relying on stale model training.
  • Build small repeatable
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