GitHub’s Copilot weekly release notes, published on 6 November 2026, include VS Code 1.145. The headline for anyone commissioning software: local automations now support cron expressions and custom agents. In plain English, an AI coding agent can be told to run a task on a schedule.
What the changelog says
- VS Code 1.145: local automations support cron expressions and custom agents. Remote app previews and interactive canvases are in preview in the Agents window, and long chats load faster.
- Copilot CLI: a unified, searchable
/settingsdashboard for plugins, MCP servers and other settings. - JetBrains Air: Copilot is available there, so teams can track multiple agent sessions and run tasks locally or in the cloud using their existing subscription.
- Copilot app: Agent Merge can be set from a pull request and stays enabled while required checks or rules are pending.
The interpretation
Schedules turn an assistant into a routine. “Check the dependencies every Monday” or “summarise open pull requests each morning” no longer needs a person to start it. That is useful, and it is also where unattended work gets risky: an agent that runs when nobody is watching needs tight limits on what it can read, change and merge.
The wider pattern is that AI coding tools are converging on the same shape: agents that run in the background, across editors, with configuration that needs managing like any other part of your stack.
So what
If your developers or your supplier are adopting scheduled agents, ask what each one is allowed to do, who gets the output, and what happens when it gets something wrong. BuildApps helps teams put sensible guard rails around this through AI-assisted development. To discuss your own setup, start a project.