Modernization: Future-Proofing Your Business Now

Modernizing legacy applications can be a daunting task, especially when dealing with conflicting dependencies and security vulnerabilities. Whether you’re migrating your app to the cloud or updating Java runtime, ensuring smooth progress requires specialized tools. Fortunately, GitHub Copilot agent mode paired with the GitHub Copilot app modernization VS Code extension delivers an interactive, step-by-step experience to help you upgrade and migrate your Java projects faster, with fewer errors and more confidence.

This guide highlights Java modernization; however, similar functionality is available for .NET applications within Visual Studio using GitHub Copilot Agent Mode. This includes AI-assisted .NET upgrades, cloud-ready migration paths, and seamless deployment to Azure – delivering a consistent, guided experience across the entire modernization journey that reduces manual effort and accelerates time to value. Learn more in the docs.

In this article, you’ll learn how to use these tools together in Visual Studio Code to analyze your Java project and generate an upgrade plan, apply changes automatically using GitHub Copilot, fix build issues and validate tests in-loop, and detect and fix CVEs post-upgrade.

What is GitHub Copilot agent mode? 🤔

It’s an advanced feature of GitHub Copilot that transforms the tool from a passive suggestion generator into an active coding collaborator.

It’s like having a junior developer on your team who understands what you’re trying to achieve and works through multiple steps to make it happen, automatically and iteratively, without you having to spell out every single instruction. Modernization efforts benefit greatly from this collaborative approach.