Track: DevOps & Automation¶
Target Audience: DevOps engineers, Platform engineers, SRE teams Duration: 21 hours (7 sessions × 3 hrs) Difficulty: Beginner → Advanced Recommended Delivery: 3 days (2–3 sessions per day)
Description¶
Copilot for the DevOps workflow. This track gives platform and DevOps engineers the Copilot fundamentals they need, introduces agent mode as the primary power tool, then dives deep into GitHub Actions generation, Infrastructure as Code (Terraform/Bicep), and CI/CD pipeline debugging with agentic security remediation. Designed for engineers who spend their days in pipelines, infrastructure, and operational tooling.
Prerequisites¶
- Experience with CI/CD concepts and GitHub Actions (basic familiarity)
- Familiarity with at least one IaC tool (Terraform, Bicep, CloudFormation) — helpful but not required
- GitHub account with Copilot access
- VS Code installed with GitHub Copilot extension
- Access to a cloud environment for IaC testing (Azure, AWS, or GCP) — optional for labs
Sessions¶
| Order | Session # | Title | Difficulty | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 01 | Introduction to GitHub Copilot | Beginner | 3 hrs |
| 2 | 02 | Copilot Chat & Inline Suggestions | Beginner | 3 hrs |
| 3 | 03 | Prompt Engineering Fundamentals | Beginner | 3 hrs |
| 4 | 05 | Agent Mode in the IDE | Intermediate | 3 hrs |
| 5 | 13 | GitHub Actions & Workflow Generation | Intermediate | 3 hrs |
| 6 | 14 | Infrastructure as Code with Copilot | Advanced | 3 hrs |
| 7 | 15 | CI/CD Pipeline Debugging & Agentic Remediation | Advanced | 3 hrs |
Note: Session 04 (CLI) is optional but recommended for DevOps engineers who work heavily in the terminal. Session 06 (Spaces) is also valuable for grounding Copilot in cloud documentation.
Recommended Delivery Schedule¶
3-Day Standard¶
| Day | Sessions | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Sessions 01, 02, 03 | Copilot foundations |
| Day 2 | Sessions 05, 13 | Agent mode + Actions |
| Day 3 | Sessions 14, 15 | IaC + CI/CD debugging |
4-Day Extended (with optional sessions)¶
| Day | Sessions | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Sessions 01, 02 | Setup and Chat |
| Day 2 | Sessions 03, 04 | Prompting + CLI |
| Day 3 | Sessions 05, 13 | Agent mode + Actions |
| Day 4 | Sessions 14, 15 | IaC + CI/CD debugging |
Learning Outcomes¶
By completing this track, trainees will be able to:
- Use Copilot effectively across IDE, Chat, and agent mode for DevOps tasks
- Generate GitHub Actions workflows from natural language descriptions
- Create custom Actions with Copilot assistance
- Generate and validate Terraform and Bicep infrastructure definitions
- Debug failing CI/CD pipelines using Copilot analysis
- Configure CodeQL scanning and use the approved agentic remediation workflow for security findings
- Optimize pipeline performance (caching, parallelization, conditional execution)
- Integrate security scanning into every pipeline stage
Next Steps¶
- Agentic Development — Learn to build custom agents and MCP servers that automate infrastructure workflows
- Enterprise Rollout — Understand governance policies and rollout strategies for scaling Copilot across teams
- Developer Productivity — Fill in the intermediate sessions (Spaces and Code Review) for broader Copilot fluency