GPT-6 Astra Is Generally Available in GitHub Copilot

What shipped

GPT-6 Astra from OpenAI is now generally available in GitHub Copilot, announced September 4, 2026. OpenAI's latest general-purpose model is built for long-horizon, autonomous coding and agentic tasks. In GitHub's internal testing, Astra stood out for how it works: it plans and validates as it goes, batches diagnosis with verification, and confirms its own results before declaring a task done — with fewer steps than prior OpenAI models on long-horizon coding work.

What changed

GPT-6 Astra is available to Copilot Pro+, Max, Business, and Enterprise users and appears in the model picker across VS Code, the Copilot CLI, the Copilot coding agent, the Copilot app, github.com, GitHub Mobile, JetBrains IDEs, Xcode, and Eclipse — rollout is gradual. It is billed at provider list pricing under usage-based billing. Copilot Business and Enterprise admins manage access through the model policy in Copilot settings: new models are enabled automatically unless the global default is off or the model is explicitly disabled.

Why a builder cares

Long-horizon agentic coding now runs inside the toolchain where your reviews, CI, and pull requests already live — no new surface to wire up. Usage-based billing means you pay only when the model runs, and fewer steps on long tasks means cheaper agent loops for teams already on Copilot.