Agentic Coding with GitHub Copilot CLI and Squad

A Hands-On Workshop

Danton Noriega-Goodwin

2026-03-21

About Danton

  • Danton Roberto Noriega-Goodwin 🇨🇱 🇺🇸
  • Principal Data Scientist at Microsoft 👨🏽‍💻
  • OCC, UCI, CSULB, Georgetown, Duke 😱
  • Fun Facts 🥏 🎸

About Our Assistants

  • Nathaniel Talampas
    • CSULB Math & Stats Department
    • Fun Facts 🎸 🎶 🏄‍♂️
  • Cory Suzuki
    • CSULB Math & Stats Department
    • Fun Facts 🏃‍♂️ 🏞 📖 🎮 🎵

Why Are We Here?

You Already Use AI to Code

You’ve probably asked ChatGPT to write code for you.

It gives you code. You copy it. You paste it somewhere.

But what if AI could just… build things directly on your computer?

Web Chatbots vs CLI Agents

Web Chatbot CLI Agent
Where In your browser On your computer
What it does Talks about code Builds things for you
Files You copy-paste It creates them directly
Errors You fix them It fixes them itself

Think: a tutor who explains how to ride a bike vs someone who builds you a bike.

What is a “CLI”?

Command Line Interface

Your computer has two interfaces:

  • GUI — the one you click (icons, windows, menus)
  • CLI — the one you type (text commands)

The clickable one is built on top of the typing one.

Why a CLI for AI?

CLI agents can work directly on your machine:

  • Create and edit files
  • Run programs
  • Install software
  • Fix their own mistakes

A web chatbot can’t do any of that. It’s stuck in a browser tab.

What is “Agentic” Coding?

Old AI: autocomplete — you type, it suggests the next word

New AI: an agent — you give it a goal, it figures out the steps

You say “build me a snake game” and it:

  1. Plans the project
  2. Creates the files
  3. Writes the code
  4. Runs it and fixes errors

Why Copilot CLI?

There are several CLI coding agents:

  • Claude Code by Anthropic — created the CLI agent space
  • Gemini CLI by Google
  • Codex CLI by OpenAI
  • Copilot CLI by GitHub/Microsoft

We’re using Copilot CLI because the Student Developer Pack gives you access to more premium AI models for free.

Breakout Session

Goals

  • Goal 1: Install Copilot CLI & log in to GitHub
  • Goal 2: Install Squad (multi-agent tool)
  • Goal 3: Ask your Squad to build a snake game

Goal 1 is the minimum. Everything else is a bonus!

Goal 1: Copilot CLI

Student Developer Pack

  1. Go to gh.io/dataday26
  2. Verify your Student Developer Pack
  3. Redeem GitHub Copilot
  4. Click the “Copilot CLI” tab

Open Terminal

macOS: Open the Terminal app (search “Terminal” in Spotlight)

Windows: Open PowerShell v6+ (search “PowerShell” in Start Menu)

Don’t panic — it’s just a text box where you type commands.

Install Copilot CLI

macOS

Via Homebrew:

brew install copilot-cli

Or via install script:

curl -fsSL https://gh.io/copilot-install | bash

Windows

winget install GitHub.Copilot

Full docs

Authenticate (/login)

  1. In terminal, type copilot and press Enter
  2. Copilot will ask you to trust the folder — choose “Yes, proceed”
  3. Type /login
  4. Select “GitHub.com”

Authenticate (/login)

  1. You’ll see a one-time code like 1234-5678 — press any key to copy & open browser
  2. Sign in (if needed), select account, and paste code to authorize device
  3. Click “Authorize GitHub Copilot CLI”
  4. Return to terminal — you’re logged in!

🎉 You did it!

You just:

  • Opened a terminal
  • Installed software using a CLI
  • Logged in to an AI agent

That’s Goal 1. If you stop here, you’ve done great.

Terminal 101

What Just Happened?

You typed commands into a terminal and things happened.

That’s it. That’s all a terminal is.

A text conversation with your computer.

Files and Folders Have Addresses

On your computer, every file lives at an address (called a “path”):

  • macOS: /Users/yourname/Desktop/homework.docx
  • Windows: C:\Users\yourname\Desktop\homework.docx

The terminal always has a current location — the folder you’re “standing in.”

Basic Terminal Commands

Command What it does
pwd Print working directory — “Where am I?”
ls List — “What’s in this folder?”
cd dirname Change directory — “Go into this folder”
cd .. Go up one folder
mkdir dirname Make a new directory (folder)

Try It!

In your terminal, try these one at a time:

pwd
ls
cd Desktop
ls
cd ..

You’re just looking around — nothing can break.

Goal 2: Squad

What is Squad?

A single AI agent is powerful. But what if you had a whole team?

Squad coordinates multiple AI agents that work together:

  • One plans the project
  • One writes the code
  • One reviews and tests

Read the blog post

Installing Squad

Prerequisites

Install Node.js (required for Squad)

macOS

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.40.4/install.sh | bash

Windows

# Download and install Chocolatey:
powershell -c "irm https://community.chocolatey.org/install.ps1|iex"
# Download and install Node.js:
choco install nodejs --version="24.14.0"

Install Squad

npm install -g @bradygaster/squad-cli

Goal 3: Build a Snake Game

Set Up Your Project and Go

cd ~
mkdir repos && cd repos
mkdir snake-game && cd snake-game
git init
git config user.name "Your Name"
git config user.email "your.email@student.csulb.edu"
squad init
copilot --yolo --effort xhigh --agent squad

Hire a Squad

Use this prompt:

hire a team to create a snake game i can play locally using python. use uv for package management. begin building the game immediately after hiring.

Then sit back and watch AI agents build a game for you.

Wrap Up

Resources