{"id":1180756,"date":"2026-08-03T15:10:33","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T22:10:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?post_type=msr-research-item&#038;p=1180756"},"modified":"2026-08-05T14:11:29","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T21:11:29","slug":"agentic-coding-in-the-wild-characterizing-github-copilot-at-production-scale","status":"publish","type":"msr-research-item","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/publication\/agentic-coding-in-the-wild-characterizing-github-copilot-at-production-scale\/","title":{"rendered":"Agentic Coding in the Wild: Characterizing GitHub Copilot at Production Scale"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">AI coding agents (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Codex) interleave multi-step LLM inference with tool execution, creating a workload different from chatbots. We present the first production-scale characterization of this workload using sampled GitHub Copilot traces from June 2026, comprising 3.2M users, 13M sessions, 761M LLM calls, and 95T tokens.<br>Our analysis reveals distinctive workload properties with important systems implications. For example, agentic coding sessions consist of sparse user-initiated turns, each unfolding into an autonomous agent loop of LLM calls coupled nearly 1:1 with tool execution. This structure yields KV cache hit rates averaging 90% within a turn, but falling to 55% across turn boundaries and drastically invalidated after events like model switches or context compaction. Diverse workflows and user behaviors are observed with variable and long-tailed token consumption, time span, and tool calls. We highlight the difference between quick agentic turnaround times and the minutes-long user idle periods at turn boundaries, and design a lightweight idle-time predictor that captures 86\u201390% of total idle time, enabling proactive decisions for efficient resource orchestration. These findings challenge assumptions underlying current LLM-serving systems and provide an empirical foundation for agent-native infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AI coding agents (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Codex) interleave multi-step LLM inference with tool execution, creating a workload different from chatbots. We present the first production-scale characterization of this workload using sampled GitHub Copilot traces from June 2026, comprising 3.2M users, 13M sessions, 761M LLM calls, and 95T tokens.Our analysis reveals distinctive workload properties [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","msr-author-ordering":[{"type":"text","value":"Banruo Liu","user_id":0},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Haoran Qiu","user_id":"43428"},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"&Iacute;&ntilde;igo Goiri","user_id":"32102"},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Rodrigo Fonseca","user_id":"40429"},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Ricardo Bianchini","user_id":"33393"},{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Esha 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This has led to large-scale deployments of these models, using complex, expensive, and power-hungry AI accelerators, most commonly GPUs. These developments make LLM training and inference efficiency an important challenge. In the Azure Research - Systems (opens in new tab) group we are working on improving the Azure infrastructure including hardware, power, and serving. 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