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Better tools made Copilot code review worse. Here's how we actually improved it
Refining Copilot instructions to prioritize local context over full-repo browsing cut review costs by 20% while maintaining quality.
What: GitHub engineer Napalys Klicius found that giving agents broad browsing tools led them to become overwhelmed. By forcing the agent to start from the specific code diff and using narrow tools like 'grep' and 'view' to gather evidence, they improved efficiency.
Why it matters: This highlights the 'context-window-is-not-enough' problem, where AI agents perform better with structured, scoped instructions than with unstructured access to large codebases.
Takeaway: If your AI agents are struggling with complex codebase tasks, constrain their tool usage to start with local diffs rather than full-repository context.
Decoder
- Agentic system: A software architecture where an AI agent can perform tasks, make decisions, and use tools to achieve a specific goal.
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