Using the Copilot Agent

July 09, 2025

Vibes

I’ve yet to really buy into the AI hype train. Though I can’t deny its gaining momentum. My initial thoughts were that Copilot was an apt name, that giving it the wheel sinks more time than it saves. Keep it for the smaller tasks, where the outcome is simple and I know what to expect.

Now its going to take my job, Google is saying a quarter of the code their developers output is generated by AI. So what’s my opinion now?

Well I still wouldn’t give it the wheel. And I still think you should have a good idea of the answer to any questions before you ask it. I know what you’re thinking - classic skill issue. I just have to learn to craft my prompts better. That is definitely part of it. I also think I don’t have access to the same AI they use at google. I won’t pay for it, I’m too cheap.

So today I’m using it, entirely. Full vibe coding! It’s going to make this blog site its on and I’m gonna explain what my experience was.

It’s still terrible at CSS

Look at this:

.parallax-hero {

position: relative;

width: 100vw;

left: 50%;

right: 50%;

margin-left: -50vw;

margin-right: -50vw;

height: calc(100vh  -  var(--nav-height));

min-height: calc(100vh  -  var(--nav-height));

background-image: url('/assets/hero.jpg');

background-attachment: fixed;

background-position: center;

background-repeat: no-repeat;

background-size: cover;

margin-bottom: 0;

display: flex;

flex-direction: column;

justify-content: space-between;

z-index: 1;

  

.hero-top {

width: 100%;

display: flex;

flex-direction: column;

align-items: flex-start;

padding: 2.5em  2.5em  0  2.5em;

box-sizing: border-box;

z-index: 2;

}

box-shadow: 0 4px 24px #0002;

top: calc(-1 * var(--page-content-padding));

}

That’s not even syntactically correct!

While we are talking CSS

Heck, its verbose, doesn’t like the grid.

It still struggles with dependency versions

It added the github-pages gem, it generated this whole project. Ask it how I update the minima gem and it tells you that its fixed to the 2.5.1 version because of the github-pages gem. If you want to update it don’t use the github-pages gem. So ask it how to do something with the minima theme and you only get advice for version 3 and above. You have to remind it that it’s recommending things for a future version.

Best practice

Okay this one can be quite opinionated so I’ll try keep it as objective as I can.

style="font-size: 0.9em; color: #888; text-align: center;"

Don’t put this everywhere, make it reusable with a class. When tell it that I get:

<style>
.text-light {
	font-size: 0.9em; 
	color: #888; 
	text-align: center;
}
</style>

What’s wrong with a stylesheet? Anyway, ask the agent to do that and its what you get.

It’s interesting people add workspace specific instructions for Copilot to pick up. Often I see it says something along the lines of “Follow best practices”. I’ve never see it follow such vague instructions.

The good stuff

Okay but it made it, and it works. You’re navigating it, reading posts on it. I’d say it lowered the barrier for entry, if I didn’t know CSS and JavaScript I’d be much quicker with this. I think the fastest approach would have been a mix. With more manual input from me and using the agent where I saw a clear outcome for it. That’s a clear win for it in my opinion, it’s not replaced me (yet) but its helped me to work faster. Or it would have, if I didn’t try my hand at ‘vibe coding’.