Be sure to follow all the steps in the Getting Started guide to quickly set up and connect to your Azure DevOps organization or private server.
The .github/copilot-instructions.md file is a great way to customize the GitHub Copilot experience, especially when working with MCP Server for Azure DevOps.
From the GitHub documentation:
Instead of repeatedly adding this contextual detail to your chat questions, you can create a file in your repository that automatically adds this information for you. The additional information is not displayed in the chat but is available to Copilot to allow it to generate higher-quality responses.
Here is an example modification you can add to your existing .github/copilot-instructions.md file.
## Using MCP Server for Azure DevOps
When getting work items using MCP Server for Azure DevOps, always try to use batch tools for updates instead of many individual single updates. For updates, try and update up to 200 updates in a single batch. When getting work items, once you get the list of IDs, use the tool `get_work_items_batch_by_ids` to get the work item details. By default, show fields ID, Type, Title, State. Show work item results in a rendered markdown table.
The server includes comprehensive work item attachment capabilities for managing files associated with work items. You can list, upload, download, and delete attachments using the `wit_*_attachment` tools.Communicating with the LLM is both an art and a science. If the model does not respond well, switching to a different model may improve your results.