Port the Copilot runtime to Rust agentically
One practitioner notes that microsoft Leaned on Copilot, driven by several LLMs picked for their strengths, to rewrite the TypeScript Copilot runtime in Rust one module at a time. The port was a direct replacement and did not restructure the runtime. Agents turned 430,000 lines of TypeScript into 800,000 lines of Rust over 14.
- Agent or tool
- GitHub Copilot
- Topic
- Knowledge & Notes
- Reported on
- Hacker News
- Added
- 2026-10-15
Why it matters
Notes are only useful if you can find and connect them later. Agents that organise, summarise and link information make a personal knowledge base far easier to keep up. It is one of 44 sightings filed under Knowledge & Notes on Agent Sightings (number 44 by interest), and one of 5 involving GitHub Copilot.
How you could try it
Here is a reusable prompt, written by us in our own words, that captures the task. Paste it into GitHub Copilot or any similar agent and adjust the details to your situation.
Notes task: port the Copilot runtime to Rust agentically. Propose edits as a checklist, apply after approval, and finish with a short handover.
Tip: Start small: run it once on a low-stakes example, read what the agent did, and only then let it run on real work.
Source
Read the original first-hand account on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49773998. Our summary is a paraphrase; details are in the source.