How to ban Copilot from GitHub repo?

[maltfield]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Question

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Copilot in GitHub

Body

How can I ban the user named Copilot from being able to access or make contributions to our GitHub repository?

Recently, I had a user submit a PR to a GitHub repo that I own. And then, some very dumb user named Copoilot just swooped into the conversation and did a code review of the PR.

Our repo has a policy explicitly forbidding content generated from AI.

I can choose to "Block user"	The "Block user" option is missing for "Copilot"

I tried to click on the three-dot-menu next to the Copilot user's spam, but the Block user button was surprisingly missing?!?

How do I Block the Copilot user from my GitHub repo?

[maltfield]

See also https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/182412/how-to-ban-copilot-from-github-repo

[pinheadmz]

Hey @maltfield 👋🏻 Copilot code review is a GitHub platform feature, not a regular user account, which is why Block user isn't available.

To prevent Copilot from reviewing PRs in your repository, you have a few options:

If you own the repository:

• Go to your repository Settings and disable automatic Copilot code review

If you're an organization or enterprise admin:

• Navigate to AI controls → Agents → Copilot code review and disable or block it for your repositories

For full details on configuring or disabling automatic code review:
https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/how-tos/agents/copilot-code-review/configuring-automatic-code-review-by-copilot

For blocking Copilot code review at the enterprise level:
https://docs.github.com/en/enterprise-cloud@latest/copilot/how-tos/administer-copilot/manage-for-enterprise/manage-agents/block-agentic-features

If Copilot reviewed a PR without anyone in your repo requesting it, it's likely because the PR author has automatic reviews enabled on their personal Copilot plan. The enterprise/org-level block will override this for your repositories.

I hope that answers your questions! Please let us know if you're able to resolve this or not. Thanks!

[pinheadmz]

There is no AI controls option ...?

[maltfield]

Even our questions about stopping AI slop are getting answered by AI with misinformation slop. It's a positive feedback loop of madness 🤦

[copygirl]

Other AI agents have "users" associated with them. Claude, Cursor, Codex, ... Commits co-authored by them are attributed to these "users". Some can be pinged to respond in pull requests or similar. Blocking these users has the nice side effect of seeing if a repository has knowingly and intentionally used known and popular AI agents in their repository, so real users can make an informed decision.

It should be possible to block Copilot just the same as any other AI agent, to prevent it from making ANY contribution to your own repositories, including reviewing PRs, whether requested by the author or not.

[kevinhsdev]

Hey! The "Block user" option doesn't appear for Copilot because it's not a real user account — it's a built-in GitHub feature, so it follows a different set of controls.

Here's how to disable it for your repository:

1. Repository Settings → Copilot → Code Review
Go to your repo's Settings > Copilot > Code Review and make sure the automatic review toggle is disabled.

2. Check your Rulesets (this is a common culprit)
Go to Settings > Rules > Rulesets and check any active ruleset. Look for a rule called "Automatically request Copilot code review" under Branch rules — if it's checked, uncheck it and save. There may be more than one ruleset, so check all of them.

3. If your repo is inside an Organization
An org admin may have enabled Copilot reviews at the org level, which overrides repo settings. The org admin needs to go to Organization Settings > Copilot > Code Review and disable it there.

⚠️ One thing to note: the Copilot review in this case was likely manually requested by the PR author (there's a checkbox when opening a PR). Even with automatic reviews disabled, contributors can still request Copilot as a reviewer manually. If you want to prevent that entirely, the only current option is disabling Copilot at the org level.

Hope that helps enforce your no-AI policy!

[maltfield]

Organization Settings > Copilot

There is no menu named Copilot under the Organization's Settings

• https://github.com/organizations/[orgname]/settings/profile

[PeterN]

I want to block the "user" so that I get a message when the "user" has contributed to any repository, same as any other slop-generating "user"

[Anar-Abdullayev-23]

The reason you don't see the "Block user" option is because Copilot isn't a standard GitHub user account—it is a system-level AI bot integrated into the platform.

To completely prevent Copilot from interacting with or reviewing PRs in your repository, you need to turn it off in your settings rather than trying to block the user.

How to disable it:

• For your specific repository: Go to your Repository Settings and turn off "Automatic Copilot code review".

• For Organization/Enterprise Admins: If you manage the organization, navigate to AI controls → Agents → Copilot code review and disable it or set the policy to block it there.

[pinheadmz]

Same issue in our repo. Someone who pays for copilot opened a PR and copilot reviewed it. We can not block copilot from commenting in our repo and there is no setting. At repo or org level.

[maltfield]

If you manage the organization, navigate to AI controls → Agents → Copilot code review and disable it or set the policy to block it there.

There is no menu named AI controls under the Organization's Settings

• https://github.com/organizations/[orgname]/settings/profile

[jeevangudavalli7]

GitHub Copilot isn't a regular GitHub user account, so it can't be blocked using the Block user feature. If Copilot is posting PR reviews, it's typically because a repository administrator or organization owner has enabled Copilot code review or another GitHub Copilot feature for that repository.

If your repository has a policy against AI-generated content or AI-assisted reviews, a repository administrator can disable Copilot's review functionality in the repository settings (or at the organization level, if it's managed there).

If you don't have administrative access to the repository, you'll need to ask the repository owner or organization administrator to disable the feature.

If you're seeing Copilot reviews even though you believe the feature is disabled, it would be helpful to share:

Whether the repository is personal or belongs to an organization.
Whether you have admin permissions on the repository.
Whether the review is labeled as a GitHub Copilot review or comes from another GitHub feature.

With that information, the community can help determine why Copilot is still participating in PR reviews.