Copilot Agent does not support signing commits with verified signatures

[mikhailmokhov]

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Copilot Coding Agent

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Copilot Agent currently does not support signing commits with verified signatures. This presents a blocker for repositories that enforce commit signature verification. It appears that a solution has been implemented for bots, so I’m wondering if similar support for Copilot Agent is planned in the near future.

[nathanmargaglio]

I, too, would like to know what the status of this is, since this is also preventing us from (effectively) using Copilot Agent with our repos.

Is there a specific reason Copilot isn't signing its commits? Or is this just a feature that has yet to be implemented?

[erik-arcos-ml]

Hello, we are also having this issue in our organization. Signed commits are mandatory for all repositories, and by using this feature, we would need to turn off this protection.

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[ColemanDunn]

So github supports commit signing for bots but their own bot/agent doesn't have it??

? https://docs.github.com/en/authentication/managing-commit-signature-verification/about-commit-signature-verification#signature-verification-for-bots

[pconrad]

Is there an update on this? The copilot agent us doing a great job of creating commits that address issues, but the fact that the commits are not signed is a problem

[nesl247]

Is there any update on this? It's quite bad that a first party bot doesn't do signed commits.

[tiagostutz]

Is there any update on this?

[gabrielpessoa1]

Any update? Currently in our repos someone has to pull the branch and sign before merging, which is quite bad for a bot that was supposed to automate these manual tasks.

[Spuffynism]

As a workaround, GitHub announced yesterday that Copilot Agent can now be added as bypass actor for select rulesets.

https://github.blog/changelog/2025-11-13-configure-copilot-coding-agent-as-a-bypass-actor-for-rulesets/

[hi120ki]

We enforce signed commits across all branches in our organization, and while adding Copilot Coding Agent to the bypass list actually allows it to invoke, but this approach introduces a critical issue:

Because Copilot adds the invoking user as a co-author, every developer who might use Copilot would also need to be added to the bypass list to merge the PR. In practice, this means disabling the security control provided by commit signing entirely.

We strongly encourage the GitHub to ensure that Copilot Coding Agent itself supports commit signing. Without that, this recent update doesn’t effectively address the root problem and it is still difficult for teams with strict security policies to adopt the agent 😢

We really appreciate the progress so far and look forward to an update supporting signed commits 🙇

[mdf-ido]

Same for me since clients are asking as well. Now that agents in Azure can have their own ID, could something similar be used for signing commits?

[ColemanDunn]

So currently any PR touched by copilot is un-mergable if you have signed commits on?

[mkushakov]

current workaround i found - checkout branch created by agent locally and squash or rebase it, then it will sign commits with your keys

[bradical]

Also worth noting that you can create a bypass exemption for the agent but even if you do that it's unmergeable b/c your engineers (presumably the people you want to ALWAYS have signed commits) still have to merge it. So you effectively have to allow everyone that would collaborate with the agent to also bypass the rule.

[Cosmodude]

Had to use the "squash & rebase" solution above because the issue is still unresolved.

[Cosmodude]

That's wild that the issue wasn't addressed in 6 months.

[timsearle]

This is a significant blocker for organizations with org-level signed commits rulesets. The current workarounds don't address several scenarios:

• Org-level ruleset enforcement: The agent can create a PR, but no one can merge it because the commits are unsigned and the ruleset applies organization-wide—there's no repo-level exemption possible.
• Agent commits to your branch: If the agent pushes unsigned commits to a branch you're working on, you'd need to rebase and re-sign every commit before you can push again.
• Main branch contamination: Even if an unsigned commit somehow made it to main, you wouldn't be able to merge main into your feature branch and push it back to the remote—the unsigned commit would block the push.

Other GitHub-owned bots (Dependabot, GitHub Actions) sign their commits. The Copilot coding agent should do the same to be consistent with GitHub's own security practices.

Our organisation has >1,500 contributors, we can't, at scale, coach and explain this as they experiment with the coding agent.

[bradical]

Main branch contamination: Even if an unsigned commit somehow made it to main, you wouldn't be able to merge main into your feature branch and push it back to the remote—the unsigned commit would block the push.

Hmm this one didn't even occur to me. So even if we temporarily relax the ruleset, if the commits end up in main we'll basically never be able to enforce the restriction again without somehow fixing those commits. Is that what you're saying?

[timsearle]

Only if you need to push those commits elsewhere. The block applies whenever you try push refs up to the remote that are unsigned, once they're there, it's fine. But if you want to merge main into your pull request, that'll fail. Need to rebase onto it instead.

[bradical]

Sorry, not following. If our common practice is to catch up PRs from main before merging (also enforced by ruleset) either through merge or rebase, wouldn't we run into this?

[timsearle]

You wouldn't be able to (merge main in to a PR with unsigned commits and push it back up) unless you were exempt. It's quite easy to reproduce this on a test repository with rulesets and see for yourself. It's a real pain and causes a lot of confusion.