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Course map: plans, AI Credits, setting up Visual Studio 2026 and VS Code, the ENGAGE repository

Preview unit: this one is open without enrolling. The rest open after you enrol.

Verified on: Visual Studio 2026 18.10.2, VS Code 1.139, Copilot CLI 1.0.89; GitHub Docs, the GitHub Changelog and Microsoft Learn as of 29 September 2026. Copilot in Visual Studio needs 17.10 or later; this course assumes Visual Studio 2026 (version 18.x).

1. The pain: three developers, three contracts

On a Monday in June, three people open the same ENGAGE solution. Tomasz signs in with his Aldervane-managed account; his seat comes from the firm's Copilot Business organisation, administered by Daniel. The contractor on the timesheet module uses his own Copilot Pro. A new joiner clicked "Get Copilot for Free" when Visual Studio offered it.

All three press Tab on the same client code. Only Tomasz is covered by Aldervane's policies and content exclusions. For the other two those rules do not exist — and for Free, Pro and Pro+, interaction data may be used for model training since 24 April 2026 unless the user opted out.

Then Daniel's first usage report arrives: one developer burned a large share of the pooled AI Credits in a week, running agent mode on the priciest model for work free inline suggestions would have done.

Mei asks: Which seat is each person on? and What does a prompt cost? This unit answers both and sets up the tools.

A pilot in the left seat reads an orange pre-flight checklist while a robot co-pilot in the right seat points at a fuel gauge
FigureA pilot in the left seat reads an orange pre-flight checklist while a robot co-pilot in the right seat points at a fuel gauge
Description

A flight-manual style figure (FIG. 1). A cockpit seen from behind. The human pilot in the left seat, labelled PILOT IN COMMAND, ticks an item on an orange clipboard marked PRE-FLIGHT. A friendly robot in the right seat, labelled CO-PILOT, points at a fuel gauge labelled CREDITS. The idea: before flying, the pilot confirms whose aircraft it is, what fuel it carries and who is responsible. The picture does not show any real product, price or screen.

2. How this course is organised

Six branches: A Foundations, B Visual Studio 2026, C VS Code and team customisation, D quality, E governance and exam, plus optional units. Two threads run through all of them: pilot in command — you own every merged line, and reviewing AI output is the core skill — and GH-300, whose outline (7 August 2026, pass mark 700) the units mark as they go.

3. Plans: which seat are you on?

Plan Price (USD) AI Credits included per month Notes
Copilot Free 0 an allowance 2,000 completions per month; models only through auto selection
Copilot Pro 10 / month 1,000 base + 500 flex cloud agent, code review, MCP
Copilot Pro+ 39 / month 3,900 base + 3,100 flex all Pro features, more models
Copilot Max 100 / month 10,000 base + 10,000 flex highest individual allocation
Copilot Business 19 / seat / month 1,900 per seat, pooled organisation policies and central management
Copilot Enterprise 39 / seat / month 3,900 per seat, pooled Business plus enterprise-grade capabilities

Student mirrors Free. Flex credits vary by design — do not budget on them.

For client work the rule is short: organisation seat, managed account. The reasons are not features:

  • Training. Since 24 April 2026, inputs, accepted outputs and code context from Free, Pro and Pro+ may be used for training unless the user opts out under Privacy in GitHub settings. Business and Enterprise are not affected.
  • Content exclusion is configured by Business or Enterprise organisations; a personal plan never sees it.
  • Policies. Models, previews, MCP and the CLI are governed by organisation policies (u17); a personal seat bypasses them.

Exam trap: "Copilot Pro gives the same data protections as Business" — false. The plan, not the IDE, decides which terms and controls apply.

4. AI Credits: what a prompt costs

Since 1 June 2026, GitHub AI Credits replace premium requests.

  • One credit = USD 0.01, billed by tokens — input, output and cached — at each model's rate.
  • Code completions and Next Edit Suggestions are not billed and stay unlimited on paid plans.
  • Organisation credits are pooled, reset at 00:00 UTC on the 1st of each month and do not carry over.
  • When the pool is empty, additional usage continues at published rates — on by default — or is blocked if an admin disabled it.
  • No automatic fallback to a cheaper model. Admins steer spend with per-user limits and cost-centre, organisation and enterprise budgets (u17).
act What you did q Completion or Next Edit Suggestion? act->q free Not billed in credits q->free yes tok Tokens: input + output + cached x model rate q->tok no: chat, agent, review pool Pooled credits (org, monthly) tok->pool q2 Pool empty? pool->q2 over Additional usage (on by default) or blocked q2->over yes
FigureFlow showing which Copilot actions consume AI Credits and what happens when the pool is empty
Description

A left-to-right flow. An action meets a decision: code completion or Next Edit Suggestion? If yes, it is not billed. If no — chat, agent mode, code review — it is measured as input, output and cached tokens times the model's rate (highlighted), drawn from the organisation's monthly pool. If the pool is empty, usage continues as additional paid usage, on by default, or is blocked. There is no branch to a cheaper fallback model.

Where to see usage. VS Code: the Copilot icon in the Status Bar. Visual Studio: the Copilot badge menu — the 18.8 release notes call the entry Copilot Usage, the GitHub usage docs Copilot Consumptions; check your version. github.com: profile menu → Copilot settings → Usage.

5. Setting up the three tools

Visual Studio 2026. Copilot is an optional installer component: Visual Studio Installer → Modify → any workload → Optional → GitHub Copilot → Modify. Sign in from the Copilot status icon in the upper-right corner. Badge states: Active, Inactive (not signed in or no subscription), Unavailable (network or service), Not installed. Pro trials are paused since 20 April 2026, so the inactive menu offers Copilot Free — wrong for client code.

VS Code. Copilot icon in the Status Bar → Use AI Features, or Accounts → Sign in with GitHub to use GitHub Copilot; for GHE.com accounts, Continue with GHE.com. Without a subscription VS Code signs you up for Free automatically — sign in with the managed account first. chat.disableAIFeatures hides AI features where a firm needs them off.

Copilot CLI (u19). winget install GitHub.Copilot, npm install -g @github/copilot (Node.js 22+) or brew install --cask copilot-cli; /login on first run. Organisation seats need the Copilot CLI policy enabled.

6. The ENGAGE repository

Every lab uses the ENGAGE sample repository, a GitHub template: https://github.com/AndreyKuralekh/engage. Create your copy with Use this template → Create a new repository in a personal or sandbox organisation, never a client one.

engage/
├── Engage.sln
├── Engage.Ci.slnf                  same projects without the .NET Framework ones — for Linux/CI
├── src/
│   ├── Engage.Api/                 ASP.NET Core minimal API (.NET 10)
│   ├── Engage.Timesheets/          RateCalculator.cs, TimesheetExporter.cs, TimesheetEntry.cs
│   ├── Engage.Billing/             InvoiceBuilder.cs, FxConverter.cs
│   ├── Engage.Legacy.Import/       .NET Framework 4.8 importer
│   └── engage-web/                 TypeScript + React front end
├── db/Engage.Database/             SQL Server database project
├── tests/Engage.Timesheets.Tests/  xUnit
├── samples/                        month-end dataset, prepared patches
├── docs/                           architecture, ADRs, export field map
├── tools/                          export validation script
├── client-configs/                 per-client rate cards (JSON) — confidential
└── .github/                        instructions, agents, skills (u10, u11)

Its defects are the teaching material — find them; do not let Copilot quietly "fix" them: money as double in RateCalculator; client identifiers in logs; async calls without cancellation tokens; SQL built by string concatenation in the legacy importer.

client-configs/ is under content exclusion. Yet in the February confidentiality incident an agent in VS Code read client-configs/northwind-rates.json and quoted a client's rate card in a Copilot-generated PR description. Unit u18 takes it apart.

7. The costs

  • AI Credits. Chat, agents and code review draw on the pool; with additional usage on by default, a busy week becomes an invoice, not a slowdown.
  • The wrong account. The badge shows whether you are signed in, not which contract applies — check the account.
  • Partial controls. Content exclusion does not cover every mode in every tool (u17).
  • Preview churn. Features change monthly; check the verified-on line.

8. Lab: pre-flight check

Hands-on path (any Copilot seat; an organisation seat is best):

  1. Visual Studio 2026: open the Copilot badge menu (upper right). Note the state, the account and the exact label of the usage entry.
  2. VS Code: open the Copilot status dashboard from the Status Bar. Note the account and allowance used.
  3. github.com: profile menu → Copilot settings. Note your plan; on Free, Pro or Pro+, read the training option under Privacy.
  4. Create your ENGAGE copy from https://github.com/AndreyKuralekh/engage (Use this template); open Engage.sln in Visual Studio and engage/ in VS Code; confirm both build (on macOS or Linux, build Engage.Ci.slnf; the .NET Framework 4.8 importer builds on Windows only).
  5. Open src/Engage.Timesheets/RateCalculator.cs and find the first defect without asking Copilot.

Read-and-answer path: for each developer in section 1, write down the plan, whether Aldervane's exclusion applies, whether interaction data may train models, and what happens when agent mode empties the pool.

FigureVisual Studio 2026 with the Copilot badge menu open in the upper-right corner, showing the signed-in account and the usage entry

This screenshot has not been added yet — its description is below.

Visual Studio 2026 with the ENGAGE solution loaded. In the upper-right corner the Copilot badge menu is open, showing the signed-in sandbox account, the active state and the entry that opens the usage window. No code is visible; Solution Explorer shows only the top-level projects.

Key points

  • Client code: organisation seat, managed account. Personal plans escape the firm's exclusions and policies.
  • Since 24 April 2026, Free, Pro and Pro+ interaction data may train models unless the user opts out; Business and Enterprise are not affected.
  • Since 1 June 2026, AI Credits (USD 0.01 each) are billed by tokens at per-model rates; completions and Next Edit Suggestions are free.
  • Organisation credits are pooled and reset monthly; additional usage is on by default; no cheaper fallback model.
  • Sign in: Visual Studio badge (upper right); VS Code Use AI Features; CLI /login.
  • ENGAGE's defects are teaching material; client-configs/ is excluded, and the exclusion has gaps.

Practice

Checking here changes nothing: answers start counting once you enrol on the course.

  1. The contractor on ENGAGE's timesheet module uses his own Copilot Pro subscription on Aldervane client code. Aldervane has Copilot Business with content exclusion on client-configs/. What is the most accurate statement?

  2. Yes or No: since 24 April 2026, interaction data from Copilot Business users may be used for model training unless the user opts out.

  3. Under usage-based billing, sort each activity: does it consume GitHub AI Credits?

    1. Accepting a code completion with Tab
    2. Accepting a Next Edit Suggestion
    3. A chat question in Ask mode
    4. A 40-turn agent mode session
    5. A Copilot code review of a pull request

  4. How is a chat request priced under GitHub AI Credits?

  5. Aldervane's pooled AI Credits run out on the 20th. Daniel has changed nothing in the billing settings. What happens when Tomasz starts an agent session?

  6. Yes or No: under AI Credits, when a budget is exhausted Copilot automatically switches to a lower-cost model.

  7. Copilot Business includes 1,900 AI Credits per seat per month for USD 19. One AI Credit is worth USD (write the number).

  8. In Visual Studio 2026, where do you sign in to Copilot and check which account is active?

  9. The Copilot badge in Visual Studio shows Inactive. Which cause fits this state?

  10. A new joiner has no Copilot subscription yet and signs in to VS Code via the Status Bar Copilot icon > Use AI Features with her personal GitHub account. What happens?

  11. Yes or No: the Visual Studio release notes and GitHub Docs use the same name for the usage entry in the Copilot badge menu.

  12. Sort each item from the ENGAGE repository: is it a deliberate defect to find, or a normal part of the repository?

    1. Money stored as double in RateCalculator
    2. Client identifiers written to logs
    3. An xUnit test project under tests/
    4. SQL built by string concatenation in the legacy importer
    5. A SQL Server database project under db/
Clear answers