GitHub released a guide to automating the sorting of Dependabot pull requests in the GitHub Copilot app

GitHub Blog published a guide on how to create an automation in the GitHub Copilot app to sort pull requests generated by Dependabot. The automation goes through open pull requests, groups them by risk level, identifies safe patch and minor updates, checks the CI status for each pull request, and generates a brief summary of recommended next steps.

According to the guide, the automation is configured in two steps: first, select a trigger (e.g. a daily schedule, typically before the start of the workday) and a runtime environment (cloud or a local machine), then enter a natural-language instruction describing the desired triage process. The user then selects the repository or project for the automation to analyze and creates the automation; the “Create and Run” option allows immediate testing without waiting for the scheduled run.

According to the company, once the run is complete, Copilot returns a summary instead of a list of individual pull requests, making it possible to quickly distinguish updates ready to merge from those requiring closer attention. If the summary identifies a major framework upgrade, for example, users can launch a new Copilot session directly from the automation results and continue the migration without having to gather context again. Every automation run is saved, so it is possible to look back at what happened during it.