DVSA Engineering Day

GitHub Copilot challenges

A workshop on Copilot best practice, then a 45 minute hands-on challenge.

About the session

Led by Alex Shaul (GitHub / Microsoft). Alex runs a workshop on best practice with GitHub Copilot, including skills and MCPs.

We provide two repositories. Your team can choose one or both of the tasks below for a 45 minute challenge. Use the best practice from the workshop to set up and tackle the task.

Each team is given a prompt to run, which produces the activity guide for the task.

Challenge 1

Technical Debt

Use Alex's best practice to set up Copilot, then address a piece of technical debt in the RSP public portal.

Repository: github.com/dvsa/rsp-frontend
System: RSP public portal
Language: TypeScript

The task

Rebuild the homepage in the serverless starter.

How to start

Open the repository and set up Copilot using the best practice from the workshop (skills and MCPs).
Run the starting prompt below to get the activity guide.
Work through the guide with Copilot, reviewing each suggestion before you accept it.

Links

Challenge 2

Add a feature

Use Alex's best practice to set up Copilot, then add a new feature to the bus permits system.

Repository: github.com/dvsa/vol-section19-bus-permits
System: Bus permits
Language: PHP
Branch: awayday-task

The task

Choose one:

Add a dashboard.
Using the DVSA Notify service, send an email when a permit has been sent.

How to start

Open the repository on the awayday-task branch and set up Copilot using the best practice from the workshop (skills and MCPs).
Run the starting prompt in the away day docs to get the activity guide.
Work through the guide with Copilot, reviewing each suggestion before you accept it.