--- title: Beyond the Basics: What GitHub Can Do Today | daily.dev description: A talk walks through lesser-known GitHub features grouped into code collaboration and actions/agents. Collaboration tips include using vscode.dev by pressing... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/beyond-the-basics-what-github-can-do-today-wjad3nb07 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Beyond the Basics: What GitHub Can Do Today | daily.dev og:description: A talk walks through lesser-known GitHub features grouped into code collaboration and actions/agents. Collaboration tips include using vscode.dev by pressing... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/beyond-the-basics-what-github-can-do-today-wjad3nb07 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/wJaD3Nb07.png og:image:alt: Beyond the Basics: What GitHub Can Do Today og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Beyond the Basics: What GitHub Can Do Today **[Microsoft Developer](https://daily.dev/sources/microsoftdeveloper)** · 21 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A talk walks through lesser-known GitHub features grouped into code collaboration and actions/agents. Collaboration tips include using vscode.dev by pressing period on a repo, recommended repo settings (squash merging, auto-update PR branches, auto-merge, auto-delete branches), federated credentials for passwordless Azure deployment authentication, the 'Ask GitHub' chat feature for organization-wide queries and triggering coding agents, and GitHub Projects for roadmapping. Actions/agents tips cover scheduled cron jobs, reusable workflows across languages, path filters to scope workflow runs, using Copilot to optimize CI/CD pipelines, and GitHub agentic workflows for keeping documentation and agents.md files up to date automatically. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How do federated credentials work for GitHub Actions deploying to Azure? Federated credentials let a GitHub Actions pipeline authenticate to Azure without a client secret, using only a client ID plus an allow list managed on both sides. The allow list now requires an organization ID and repository ID (a recent addition) in addition to names, preventing account takeover if a name changes, and the trust is scoped to a specific GitHub environment, branch, pull request, or tag. _Developers hardening cloud deployments can track authentication changes like this via daily.dev._ ### How do I run a GitHub Actions workflow on a cron schedule instead of on pull request? Replace the 'on: pull_request' trigger with 'on: schedule' and provide a cron expression to run the job at recurring intervals, such as every hour. This is useful for tasks like periodic security scans for newly introduced package issues or one-off scripts, though it isn't intended as a full enterprise job scheduler for thousands of jobs. _daily.dev helps developers building CI/CD automation keep up with GitHub Actions capabilities like scheduled workflows._ ### What are GitHub agentic workflows used for? GitHub agentic workflows are a newer capability, similar to GitHub Actions, that run an AI agent (such as the Copilot engine) against triggers like pull requests to check whether documentation, README files, or an agents.md file are stale and need updating. They are configured as markdown files with descriptions, permissions, and tool scopes, letting teams enforce that documentation drift is caught before a PR can pass. _Teams keeping documentation in sync can follow emerging tools like this through daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [From coder to orchestrator: How agents shift the role of a developer](https://daily.dev/posts/from-coder-to-orchestrator-how-agents-shift-the-role-of-a-developer-sk2e3cswg) · GitHub Blog · 2 upvotes · 0 comments - [Shared agentic work with GitHub Copilot in Microsoft Teams](https://daily.dev/posts/shared-agentic-work-with-github-copilot-in-microsoft-teams-twqdlbd2w) · GitHub Changelog · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#github](https://daily.dev/tags/github), [#azure](https://daily.dev/tags/azure), [#cicd](https://daily.dev/tags/cicd), [#github-actions](https://daily.dev/tags/github-actions) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/beyond-the-basics-what-github-can-do-today-wjad3nb07) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Beyond the Basics: What GitHub Can Do Today","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/beyond-the-basics-what-github-can-do-today-wjad3nb07","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/beyond-the-basics-what-github-can-do-today-wjad3nb07"},"datePublished":"2026-08-24T21:28:53.840Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T08:58:12.643Z","description":"A talk walks through lesser-known GitHub features grouped into code collaboration and actions/agents. 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