GitHub Adds Assisted Approvals and Codex Planning to Copilot for JetBrains
Version 1.18 adds risk-tiered tool approvals, rewindable conversations and organization-managed skills while expanding control over MCP tools.
Edited by Tyronne Panaino
GitHub released Copilot for JetBrains 1.18.0 on September 22, adding assisted tool approvals, rewindable agent conversations, organization-managed skills and instructions, Codex plan review, and more granular control over MCP tools. The official GitHub changelog confirms the update for JetBrains users and identifies assisted approvals as a public preview.
The release matters to developers and administrators because it changes how an IDE agent moves from a request to a tool action. Some low-risk calls can now proceed without a separate click, while actions the feature classifies as higher risk still ask the user to decide. GitHub documents the product behavior, but the fetched evidence does not publish its risk taxonomy or an independent evaluation of classification accuracy.
Approval flow and conversation control
Assisted approvals apply to Copilot agent sessions. GitHub says the feature automatically approves low-risk tool calls and continues to interrupt for higher-risk actions. That may reduce routine approval prompts, but teams evaluating the preview still need to observe which calls are treated as low risk in their repositories and whether their own security policy permits automated approval. The announcement establishes the release, not that every organization should enable the preview.
A separate conversation feature lets a developer edit an earlier user message. Before the replacement is sent, Copilot rewinds both the conversation and file changes, allowing the session to continue from the revised instruction. This creates a clearer correction path than stacking another prompt on top of a mistaken request. It also makes the rewind boundary important: users should review the resulting working tree rather than assume that every external effect of an earlier tool call can be undone. GitHub's page specifically establishes the conversation and file-change rewind; it does not claim rollback of external systems.
Shared guidance and Codex plans
Local and Copilot agent sessions can now use organization and enterprise skills alongside organization-managed custom instructions. The change gives managed teams a common place to distribute reusable guidance across both session types. The source does not describe compliance outcomes, so the supported conclusion is limited to shared availability rather than proof that guidance will always be followed.
The Codex agent in the JetBrains plugin now supports plan mode. Developers can review, refine or approve a proposed plan before implementation starts. That inserts an explicit review step between the request and code changes, which is useful when a task spans several files or has architectural consequences. It remains a workflow control, not evidence that the resulting plan or implementation is correct.
MCP controls and interface changes
Version 1.18 adds a switch for the built-in GitHub MCP Server without changing separately configured MCP servers. The built-in server stays enabled by default. Copilot agent sessions also receive persistent per-tool controls, so users can manage individual tools as well as the built-in server itself. These controls make tool availability more visible, although administrators still need to decide which servers and tools fit their access model.
GitHub also added a side-by-side chat panel for keeping a conversation visible while browsing sessions, plus discovery improvements for commands, customizations and settings. The release reports reliability work for inline chat, Codex startup, multiple project windows and IntelliJ 2026.3 early-access builds. Inline chat is now hidden in JetBrains Gateway and remote-development environments. Users on JetBrains IDE version 2025.1 receive advance notice to move to 2026.1 or later, while GitHub says support is unchanged in this release.
Evidence quality and limits
This report relies on one official GitHub release note, so internal confidence is medium. It confirms feature status, version and documented behavior, but supplies no independent measurements of approval accuracy, time saved, security impact or reliability. Assisted approvals are explicitly a public preview, and the practical boundary between low- and higher-risk actions remains a deployment checkpoint for teams.
Status
Confirmed. GitHub documents the Copilot for JetBrains 1.18.0 release and its feature set; performance, security benefit and policy suitability remain unverified.
Sources
Update note: Last reviewed 2026-09-23. We will revise this post if GitHub changes assisted-approval status, MCP defaults, supported IDE versions or feature availability.
Sources
Drafted with AI assistance from source briefs; reviewed for citation completeness and label accuracy.