GitHub Copilot app for Beginners: Automate Dependabot pull request triage

I might be biased, but I think Dependabot is pretty amazing. It helps keep my projects up to date, ensuring I’m always using secure libraries. But because there’re frequently new vulnerabilities, there’re frequently new pull requests from Dependabot. Sometimes it’s a minor version bump. Sometimes it’s a major version upgrade. Sometimes everything will work just fine. And sometimes… well, every single developer has been caught by a breaking change. How can we best triage these pull requests? The work isn’t particularly difficult per se, but it certainly is repetitive. It’s the perfect task to offload to Copilot! With GitHub Copilot app automations , you can hand off that first round of review. Instead of manually inspecting every Dependabot pull request, you can create an automation that reviews open pull requests, groups them by risk, verifies CI status, and delivers a summary before your day begins. Follow the steps below to build a daily Dependabot triage automation. Step 1: Create a new automation From the GitHub Copilot app, create a new automation . You’ll configure two things first: Name: Give the automation a descriptive name, such as Daily Dependabot Triage . Trigger: Decide when it should run. Available trigger options include: Manual Hourly Daily Weekly When an issue is created For recurring maintenance tasks like Dependabot reviews , a daily schedule is often a good choice. For example, you might schedule it to run before your workday begins so the results are waiting when you log in. You can also choose whether the automation runs in the cloud or on your local machine. Step 2: Describe the task in natural language Next, tell Copilot what you want it to do. For example: Review the open Dependabot pull requests, group them by risk, identify the safe patch and minor version updates, verify that CI is passing for each pull request, and provide a short summary of the recommended next steps. Because the prompt uses natural language, you can customize it to mat