GitHub Copilot app modernization – Upgrade for .NET is an AI-powered agent embedded in Visual Studio that upgrades .NET projects to newer framework versions and migrates applications to Azure. Powered by GitHub Copilot and Agent Mode, it functions as an intelligent upgrade companion that analyzes codebases, determines upgrade paths, and applies changes incrementally.
The tool is part of a broader agentic modernization experience designed to help development teams align legacy .NET applications with current framework versions and cloud-native Azure architectures. It is currently available in public preview.
Modernize legacy .NET applications and align them with cloud-native Azure architectures — now available in public preview.
The tool requires a Windows host environment and supports Visual Studio 2026 or Visual Studio 2022 version 17.14.17 and later. The .NET desktop development workload must be installed in Visual Studio, along with the GitHub Copilot and GitHub Copilot app modernization optional components.
A GitHub account with an active GitHub Copilot subscription, either paid or free, is also required, with Copilot permissions configured within the IDE. Agent Mode is enabled through Tools > Options > GitHub > Copilot > Copilot Chat, after which users activate Agent Mode in the Copilot Chat pane and select the Upgrade tool.
The modernization workflow follows three structured stages: assessment, planning, and execution. During the assessment stage, the agent examines projects to identify breaking changes, compatibility issues, and upgrade requirements. Findings are written to an assessment.md file stored under the .github/upgrades directory.
The planning stage produces a plan.md file containing upgrade strategies, dependency updates, and the stepwise actions needed to resolve identified issues. The execution stage then breaks the plan into sequential tasks, applies code changes and configuration updates, and tracks progress in a dedicated upgrade progress document.
Validation is built into the workflow through unit tests listed in the upgrade plan, allowing teams to verify upgrade correctness after execution completes. The agent supports upgrading entire solutions to newer .NET versions, including multi-project solutions targeting .NET 8, in a single operation.
Upgrade processing addresses framework version changes across projects, handling the complexity that typically accompanies large-scale .NET migrations. Throughout the upgrade process, Copilot also assists teams with necessary code fixes that arise from breaking changes and dependency conflicts introduced by the framework transition.
