Image: GitHub
Why it mattersTeams whose Copilot workflows pin a specific model have to pick a replacement today or the editor silently swaps one in for them.
A team that pins a specific Copilot model in a prompt or a workflow has one less option as of today.
GitHub deprecated four models across every Copilot experience on October 2, 2026, including Copilot Chat, inline edits, ask and agent modes, and code completions, according to the changelog. The retired list is Gemini 3.5 Flash, Gemini 3.6 Flash, Kimi K2.7 Code, and Claude Opus 4.7. GitHub names a suggested alternative beside each: Gemini 3.8 Flash for both Gemini Flash versions, Kimi K3 for Kimi K2.7 Code, and Claude Opus 5.5 for Claude Opus 4.7.
The post asks teams to update their workflows and integrations to the supported models. GitHub says no action is required to remove the deprecated entries themselves.
What Enterprise administrators have to check
GitHub says Copilot Enterprise administrators may need to enable access to the alternative models through their model policies in Copilot settings. The verification path is in the changelog: an administrator opens their individual Copilot settings, confirms the policy is enabled for the specific model, and the model then appears in the Copilot Chat model selector in VS Code and on github.com. GitHub Enterprise customers with questions are told to reach out to their account manager.
A workflow that calls Claude Opus 4.7 by name through the Copilot API will not fall through to Opus 5.5 on its own. Enterprise policies decide which models are permitted on a tenant, and a model that was never approved does not run even when GitHub recommends it as the replacement.
The deprecated Gemini 3.5 and 3.6 Flash models were the smaller, cheaper options a team might have been reaching for by default on cost-sensitive tasks. Gemini 3.8 Flash is the recommended replacement, but it is a different model with different latency and pricing.
The four deprecations landed on the same day as a second changelog from GitHub, which added REST and GraphQL API support for Copilot code review and switched the default review effort to Balanced. The two together mean a Copilot workflow written as recently as last week may now be calling a retired model from a code path that got a new API surface at the same time.
For a team building software with Copilot in the loop, a pinned model is a dependency, and GitHub replaced four of them today without a transition period. The useful check is one grep across your prompts, agents, and CI configuration for the four retired names, before the editor picks something for you.
Source
This item was written by an AI system from the linked source. Reveneau is responsible for what it publishes.
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