Training course · GitHub Copilot · C/C++ & Embedded

GitHub Copilot for C/C++ and Embedded Developers

Use GitHub Copilot professionally: completions, chat, agent mode, the coding agent for issues and PRs, code review and enterprise policies.

Duration
2 days (14 hrs)
Format
Online or on-site
Language
German or English
Participants
open dates or exclusive for your team
Certificate
Certificate of attendance

Overview

“GitHub Copilot for C/C++ and Embedded Developers” is a hands-on course for roles such as Embedded software engineers working with microcontrollers and RTOS-based systems, C++ developers in systems software, automotive and industrial automation and Firmware and device driver developers. Rather than learning GitHub Copilot in the abstract, you work on tasks from your daily routine – with examples, exercises and templates from C/C++ & Embedded.

GitHub Copilot has grown from simple code completion into a broad AI platform that supports the entire development lifecycle. In the editor you work with inline suggestions, next edit suggestions and Copilot Chat; in agent mode Copilot handles tasks across multiple files and runs commands. On GitHub itself, the coding agent picks up assigned issues and delivers pull requests. In this two-day course you will learn how to use each of these building blocks deliberately and fit them cleanly into your existing development process.

Beyond hands-on editor work, the course covers control and quality. Custom instructions and prompt files give Copilot the project knowledge it needs, MCP adds further tools, and Copilot code review complements human reviewers. For those responsible for teams and organisations, we look at policies at organisation and enterprise level, content exclusions, model availability and usage reporting. Together, these lay the groundwork for a secure, transparent and genuinely effective Copilot rollout across the entire company.

In embedded and systems development, determinism, memory safety and tight resource budgets matter more than almost anywhere else. AI coding assistants and agents help you read datasheets and register maps, write drivers and hardware abstraction layers, clear compiler warnings and static analysis findings, and build unit tests with mocks for hardware access. The domain also demands particular care: undefined behaviour, race conditions in interrupt handlers or MISRA violations creep in quickly when generated code is accepted uncritically. In this course you learn to integrate AI into your cross-compilation workflow with CMake, debuggers and hardware-in-the-loop tests while meeting the quality and safety expectations of functionally safe products.

The course is delivered live – either online in a virtual classroom or on-site in our training rooms in Munich, Salzburg, Berlin, Augsburg, Hanover, Bremen, Stuttgart and Kaiserslautern. We can also run it exclusively for your team.

Who is this course for?

  • Embedded software engineers working with microcontrollers and RTOS-based systems
  • C++ developers in systems software, automotive and industrial automation
  • Firmware and device driver developers
  • Embedded Linux and Yocto developers
  • Test and verification engineers for embedded systems

Typical challenges we address

  • Memory errors, undefined behaviour and concurrency bugs are hard to find and costly in the field
  • Legacy C codebases full of global state and macros with little test coverage
  • Significant effort to comply with and evidence coding standards such as MISRA C/C++ or AUTOSAR C++
  • Hardware knowledge locked in datasheets and in the heads of a few experts

What you will be able to do

  • You use Copilot completions, chat and agent mode purposefully for your everyday development tasks.
  • You capture project knowledge in custom instructions and prompt files to improve output quality.
  • You delegate suitable issues to the coding agent and review its pull requests properly.
  • You integrate Copilot code review sensibly into your existing review process.
  • Apply AI agents to driver development, refactoring and debugging in C and C++ in a targeted, verifiable way.
  • Raise test coverage of low-level software with generated unit tests and mocks that run on the host.
  • Combine AI support with coding standards, static analysis and the evidence requirements of safety-related development.

Course outline

Day 1

Module 1 Copilot in the editor: completions and chat
  • Accepting, rejecting and steering inline and next edit suggestions efficiently
  • Using Copilot Chat for explanations, debugging and test generation
  • Setting context precisely with files, selections, workspace and chat variables
  • Model selection and differences between VS Code, Visual Studio and JetBrains IDEs
Module 2 Agent mode and extensions
  • Planning multi-step tasks in agent mode and executing them under control
  • Feeding terminal commands, test runs and error output into the agent loop
  • Connecting MCP servers for additional tools and data sources
  • Reviewing changes, accepting them partially or rolling them back
Module 3 Project knowledge through custom instructions
  • Writing repository-wide instructions on architecture, style and testing
  • Creating path-specific instructions and reusable prompt files
  • Combining personal and organisation-wide guidance sensibly
  • Refining instructions continuously based on output quality
Module 4 Coding agent and code review on GitHub
  • Writing issues the coding agent can implement reliably
  • Reviewing, commenting on and iterating over the agent’s pull requests
  • Using Copilot code review as an additional check in the PR process
  • Configuring the agent’s development environment with setup steps and Actions

Day 2

Module 5 Administration, policies and security
  • Licence assignment and policies at organisation and enterprise level
  • Content exclusions, model availability and public code filters
  • Using audit logs and usage metrics to steer adoption
  • Clarifying security risks, secrets and accountability for AI-generated code
Module 6 Practice lab: C/C++ & Embedded
  • Drivers from datasheets
  • Making sense of static analysis
  • Unit tests with hardware mocks
  • Crash and memory analysis
  • Introducing modern C++
  • Build and toolchain upkeep
Module 7 Data protection, quality & transfer to daily work
  • Firmware is often core intellectual property and may be subject to export control or security requirements: you learn how to protect source code, assess licensing risks in generated code and reconcile AI use with the Cyber Resilience Act, IEC 62443 and functional safety under ISO 26262 or IEC 61508.
  • Ground rules for safe AI use in your team
  • Checking results: facts, sources, tests and the four-eyes principle
  • Personal action plan for the next 30 days
  • Open questions, outlook and resources for further learning

Practical scenarios from your field

Drivers from datasheets

Have register descriptions and timing diagrams structured from datasheets, then derive headers with bitfield definitions, initialisation routines and a lean hardware abstraction layer for SPI, I²C or UART peripherals.

Making sense of static analysis

Explain and prioritise findings from clang-tidy, cppcheck or MISRA checkers, propose compliant corrections and prepare justified deviations for your deviation records. Recurring patterns can then be fixed across the codebase.

Unit tests with hardware mocks

Extract testable interfaces from low-level code, generate mocks for register and HAL access and create unit tests with GoogleTest, Unity or CppUTest that run on the host.

Crash and memory analysis

Interpret HardFault registers, stack traces, core dumps and sanitiser output, narrow down likely causes such as stack overflows or use-after-free and suggest targeted debugging steps.

Introducing modern C++

Gradually replace raw pointers, manual memory management and macros with RAII, constexpr, smart pointers and type-safe abstractions without degrading real-time behaviour or the memory budget.

Build and toolchain upkeep

Structure CMake projects for cross-compilation, create toolchain files, linker scripts and CI jobs for firmware builds and analyse build failures in the context of the target platform.

Possible hands-on projects

Register header generator

A script that converts register tables from an SVD or CSV file into type-safe C headers with masks, offsets and accessor functions.

Serial protocol monitor

A desktop tool that reads from a serial port, decodes a custom binary protocol and displays frames with timestamps and filters.

MISRA report dashboard

A small web view that aggregates static analysis results, groups rule violations by module and tracks progress across builds. New violations are highlighted.

Prerequisites

You develop software regularly, work with Git and GitHub issues and pull requests, and use a modern IDE. You are proficient in C or C++ and experienced with build systems, debugging and low-level or systems programming.

Technical requirements

Your own laptop with VS Code or a JetBrains IDE, the Copilot extension installed and a GitHub account with an active Copilot licence; the coding agent requires a suitable plan.

Data protection & compliance

Firmware is often core intellectual property and may be subject to export control or security requirements: you learn how to protect source code, assess licensing risks in generated code and reconcile AI use with the Cyber Resilience Act, IEC 62443 and functional safety under ISO 26262 or IEC 61508.

Suggested dates

All dates are suggestions – your preferred date is always possible.

  • Wed, 25 November 2026 – Thu, 26 November 2026 Online Request
  • Wed, 9 December 2026 – Thu, 10 December 2026 Salzburg Request
  • Thu, 17 December 2026 – Fri, 18 December 2026 Online Request
  • Tue, 12 January 2027 – Wed, 13 January 2027 Bremen Request
  • Tue, 26 January 2027 – Wed, 27 January 2027 Online Request
  • Wed, 3 February 2027 – Thu, 4 February 2027 Augsburg Request

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between agent mode and the coding agent?

Agent mode runs inside your IDE: you work interactively with Copilot, see every step and approve commands. The coding agent, by contrast, works autonomously on GitHub once you assign it an issue, uses its own execution environment and opens a pull request that you then review just as you would a contribution from a colleague.

How can we make sure Copilot complies with our company policies?

At organisation and enterprise level you can enable or block specific features, models and extensions. Content exclusions keep sensitive files out of the context, and audit logs make usage traceable. During the course we show how to align these controls with data protection, information security requirements and your internal coding standards.

Is the course worthwhile if we already use Copilot?

Yes, especially then. Many teams rely on completions alone and barely touch chat, agent mode, custom instructions or the coding agent. The course shows how to use these features in a structured way, improve results with project knowledge and avoid common pitfalls. Experienced users benefit most from the sections on review and governance.

Is AI-generated code acceptable in safety-critical embedded systems?

Standards such as ISO 26262 or IEC 61508 do not prohibit AI tools, but they require traceable processes, reviews, testing and, where relevant, tool qualification. Generated code is therefore treated like any other code: reviewed, tested and verified against coding standards. In the course you develop working practices that support this evidence rather than bypass it.

Can an AI agent work with my target hardware?

Agents can trigger builds, flash devices, read serial output and run tests on the host or a hardware-in-the-loop rig, provided you expose the right command-line tools. We show you how to set up such loops in a controlled way, with clear permissions and without the agent accessing production devices unsupervised.

How much does “GitHub Copilot for C/C++ and Embedded Developers” cost?

The course costs a flat €949 plus VAT per participant – whether online or on-site. This includes 2 training day(s) with a live trainer, course materials, a lab environment and a certificate of attendance.

Can I suggest my own date?

Yes. Our suggested dates are just a guide. In the request form you can always describe your preferred date or period in free text – we check availability and confirm within one working day.

Is the course online or on-site?

Both are possible: live online in a virtual classroom or on-site in Munich, Salzburg, Berlin, Augsburg, Hanover, Bremen, Stuttgart or Kaiserslautern. We can also run the course exclusively for your team.

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