Module 9 · RemoteVerified 2 Nov 2026

Dev Tunnels & GitHub Environments

Keep an agent working on your machine and steer it from anywhere, or give the cloud coding agent the setup it needs.

Which connection do I need?

Connection chooser

Pick your goal

Pick the situation closest to yours.

Two things called “environments”

Two meanings of GitHub Environments
	GitHub Environments (VS Code)	Repository environment “copilot”
What	Remote connection to a registered machine	Secrets and variables for the coding agent
Where	Remote Connections in VS Code	Repo → Settings → Environments
Status	Preview	Part of the coding agent

Security first

Never combine an unauthenticated tunnel with auto-approved tools. Connected clients get trusted access to your machine, and traffic is not end-to-end encrypted.

Set up a dev tunnel

Install the CLI and sign in
bash
```
code tunnel --accept-server-license-terms
```
Sign in with the same GitHub account when prompted. Leave it running.
Name the tunnel
bash
```
code tunnel --name my-dev-box
```
Pick a name you will recognise from the remote client.
Keep it as a service
bash
```
code tunnel service install
```
Starts at login so the tunnel survives a reboot.
Confirm access control
bash
```
code tunnel status
```
Tunnels should require authentication. Never expose an anonymous tunnel together with Allow all.

Coding agent set-up workflow

.github/workflows/copilot-setup-steps.yml

name: "Copilot Setup Steps"
on: workflow_dispatch
jobs:
  copilot-setup-steps:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      contents: read
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 22
          cache: npm
      - run: npm ci

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting
Symptom	Check
Tunnel does not appear in the client	Is it running, and is it the same GitHub account on both sides?
Connection drops overnight	The host must stay awake. Check sleep settings or use a cloud session.
Agent cannot reach a private service	Network rules on the host apply. Check sandbox network settings.
Coding agent cannot install dependencies	Check the copilot-setup-steps job runs on its own, and that required secrets live in the copilot environment.