AI Coding Agents with GitHub Copilot and Cursor

40mGeneral2025-03-06

Authors

Morten Rand-Hendriksen

Senior Staff Instructor, Speaker, Web Designer, and Software Developer

Course details

Explore how to work with AI coding agents that can create, edit, organize, delete files, run programs in the command line, and more. AI coding assistants have already changed the way developers write and maintain code. Now they are gaining agentive abilities that let them act directly in projects: to add and edit code, create and organize files, extend features, and more. Explore how AI coding agents work, how to use them to supercharge your workflows, where the opportunities and pitfalls are, and how to keep your skills current as the world of software development evolves.

Learning objectives
Understand the difference between the chat, edit, and agent modes in AI coding agents.
Explore the capabilities of AI agents.
Discover how to add custom instructions to AI coding assistants and coding agents.
Develop a human-in-the-loop mindset for coding with AI agents.

Skills covered

CursorAnysphereGithub CopilotGitHubProgramming FoundationsGenerative AIArtificial Intelligence for BusinessArtificial Intelligence (AI)Business Analysis and StrategySoftware DevelopmentOne-Off

Concepts

0. Introduction

01 - Coding with agents

1. AI Coding Agents

02 - What is an AI coding agent
03 - Accessing agent mode in GitHub Copilot
04 - Accessing agent mode in Cursor
05 - Understanding how chat, edit, and agent modes differ
06 - Defining agent scope
07 - How to accept all or individual agent edits
08 - Reverting agent edits
09 - Running agent command line prompts
10 - Adding custom instructions for GitHub Copilot
11 - Adding custom instructions for Cursor

2. Conclusion

12 - Next steps