GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio: Bring Your Own Model Now Requires the New Agent (Preview)
GitHub CopilotGitHub updated Bring Your Own Model (BYOM) in GitHub Copilot for Visual Studio as part of the September update. Developers can use their team's preferred models through GitHub Copilot or their own deployments from Microsoft Foundry, OpenAI, Anthropic and Ollama, whether or not they are signed in to GitHub. BYOM is on by default in the Community, Professional and Enterprise editions, but it is now a breaking change: it works only with the new Agent (Preview), and previously configured Ollama models must be re-added.
Key Takeaways
- BYOM is now on by default in Visual Studio Community, Professional and Enterprise editions, as a preview feature.
- BYOM now requires the new Agent (Preview), built on the GitHub Copilot SDK-powered harness, and no longer works in the previous Ask and Agent modes.
- Supported providers are Microsoft Foundry, OpenAI, Anthropic and Ollama.
- No GitHub sign-in is required, so developers can use their own deployments without being signed in.
- Previously added Ollama models must be re-added after updating.
- The same update adds Git agent pull request exploration and a NuGet vulnerability fixer in the Error List.
Bring Your Own Model in Visual Studio
GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio now lets developers work with the models their team prefers, either through GitHub Copilot or through their own deployments. The September update makes BYOM available in preview, and it is enabled by default in the Visual Studio Community, Professional and Enterprise editions. Developers do not have to be signed in to GitHub to use it, which opens Copilot's chat and agent experience to teams that run their own model deployments.
Supported providers are Microsoft Foundry, OpenAI, Anthropic and Ollama. A developer adds a provider from the model picker in Copilot Chat and then selects the model for their session. The update is available across all GitHub Copilot plans.
A Breaking Change: BYOM Now Requires Agent (Preview)
The most important detail for existing users is that BYOM now works only with the new Agent (Preview), which is built on the GitHub Copilot SDK-powered harness. The previous Ask and Agent modes no longer support BYOM. Developers who used custom models in those modes need to move to the new Agent to keep using them.
Previously configured Ollama models also need attention: Ollama models added before the update must be re-added after updating. Teams running local models should plan a short reconfiguration step.
What Else Shipped in the Same Update
The September update also gives the Git agent the ability to summarize a pull request attached as context from the Git Repository window, with links to comments and files, which requires connecting a Git provider's MCP server (GitHub and Azure DevOps are supported). NuGet Audit warnings in the Error List now offer a fixer action that opens Copilot Chat in agent mode using the NuGet MCP server.
Who Should Care
BYOM matters most to teams that standardize on a specific provider, run models in their own cloud tenant, or experiment with local models through Ollama. Because it works without a GitHub sign-in, it also suits developers whose organizations manage model access outside GitHub.