Copilot Code Review Reaches Azure Repos, Billed Per Review with Reporting Two Days Behind

September 4, 2026 | Source: InfoQ AI/ML

Tags: GitHub Copilot, Azure DevOps, Azure Repos, Microsoft, code review, MCP Server

GitHub Copilot code review is now generally available in Azure Repos for all Azure DevOps customers, billed per review through Azure subscriptions — Microsoft's admission that most enterprises aren't migrating to GitHub, so it's bringing AI dev tooling to them instead.

Details

Microsoft removed the sign-up requirement on GitHub Copilot code review for Azure Repos, opening the feature to all Azure DevOps customers as of September 2026. In unusually candid language, the company acknowledged it had spent years pushing customers to migrate from Azure Repos to GitHub, then admitted many are 'not yet ready to move' due to compliance requirements, migration complexity, and organizational constraints — so it's reversing course and bringing the GitHub capability to Azure DevOps. Billing is per completed review: each review consumes input, output, and cached tokens, converted to GitHub AI credits at one credit per cent. Spending reports arrive two days after the fact, making real-time cost tracking impossible. Higher review effort and larger pull requests consume more credits. The August release adds onboarding controls at org, project, and repo level; custom instructions scoped to an org, project, or specific file paths; and automatic reviews triggered by branch policies. Separately, the Azure DevOps Remote MCP Server also reached GA this month — though Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor cannot connect yet because Entra lacks the client registration mechanisms those tools require. For teams locked into Azure DevOps by compliance or tooling debt, this is a meaningful update. For everyone else, it's feature parity with what GitHub has offered for some time.