Copilot edited an ad into my PR
by pavo-etc on 3/30/2026, 4:04:31 AM
https://notes.zachmanson.com/copilot-edited-an-ad-into-my-pr/
Comments
by: plastic041
This "ad" is not exactly new. Looks like MS thinks it's a "tip" rather than an ad. I don't know if Raycast team even knows about this.<p><a href="https://github.com/PlagueHO/plagueho.github.io/pull/24#issue-3076164344" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/PlagueHO/plagueho.github.io/pull/24#issue...</a> Copilot has been adding "(emoji) (tip)" thing since May 2025. GitHub copilot was released in May 2025, so basically it has had an ad since beginning.<p>There are 1.5m of these things in GitHub. <a href="https://github.com/search?q=%22%3C%21--+START+COPILOT+CODING+AGENT+TIPS+--%3E%22&type=pullrequests&s=updated&o=asc&p=1" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/search?q=%22%3C%21--+START+COPILOT+CODING...</a><p>Here are some of them:<p><a href="https://github.com/johannesPP/FS-Calculator/pull/2" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/johannesPP/FS-Calculator/pull/2</a><p>> Connect Copilot coding agent with Jira, Azure Boards or Linear to delegate work to Copilot in one click without leaving your project management tool.<p><a href="https://github.com/sharthomas645-tech/HybridAI-Next-React-Vite/pull/37" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/sharthomas645-tech/HybridAI-Next-React-Vi...</a><p>> Send tasks to Copilot coding agent from Slack and Teams to turn conversations into code. Copilot posts an update in your thread when it's finished.<p>Looks like MS really want to "give tips" about their new integrations.<p>edit: I think it's an ad too. Everyone would think so, except for MS.
3/30/2026, 7:12:02 AM
by: dathinab
This is unsolicited advertisement impersonating the developer (yes people can guess, but this still places it inside a message of the developer and in difference to e.g. mail programs doing it it's not placing it in the draft),<p>I don't see how this is supposed to be legal.
3/30/2026, 8:46:31 AM
by: volkadav
On the bright side, at least it's in the PR text and not the code? (... yet?)<p>Sheesh.
3/30/2026, 8:47:56 AM
by: anton-g
Well, you are not alone: <a href="https://github.com/search?q=%22%E2%9A%A1+Quickly+spin+up+copilot+coding+tasks%22&type=pullrequests" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/search?q=%22%E2%9A%A1+Quickly+spin+up+cop...</a>
3/30/2026, 6:00:50 AM
by: khvirabyan
Just thinking, could it be that your coworker used Raycast to spin up a codex to review and fix the typo on the PR? And that comment was added by Raycast?
3/30/2026, 5:48:57 AM
by: caijia
I've already be patient when claude code always signs my commits as co-author by defualt. Yes, it is.<p>But I'm also paying the plan. Theres something odd about a tool which i paid for using my output to AD itself.
3/30/2026, 8:38:40 AM
by: WD-42
Why is copilot doing this? If they wanted to show ads couldn’t they… just show ads? Or is GitHub such a house of cards at this point that editing pr descriptions is the only way without risking another 9 of downtime?
3/30/2026, 5:28:14 AM
by: paweladamczuk
I was recently running Copilot CLI in a sandbox on autopilot mode and it kept overriding git config to put only "GitHub Copilot" as commit author instead of my name. Strongly worded instructions weren't helping, I had to resort to the permission system to change this behavior.<p>I wonder if this is consistent with their terms of service. I mean, maybe they DO take all the responsibility for the code I generate and push in this manner?
3/30/2026, 7:26:54 AM
by: nialse
Microsoft injecting permanent ads in PRs? Has this been independently confirmed?<p>Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.
3/30/2026, 4:57:59 AM
by: post_below
Assuming this isn't a hoax, this seems like a huge, probably unintentional, mistake by MS.<p>If they genuinely implemented something like this, whatever they made from new customers via ads couldn't possibly make up for the loss of good faith with developers and businesses.<p>I suppose if it's real we'll see more reports soon, and maybe a mea culpa.
3/30/2026, 5:29:35 AM
by: ex-aws-dude
How long before the LLM makes sponsored decisions in the actual implementation?<p>"It looks like the user wants to add a database, I've gone ahead and implemented the database using today's sponsor: MongoDB"
3/30/2026, 5:35:45 AM
by: pinkmuffinere
I think they want the free advertisement, like Apple with its “sent from iPhone” addendums. But “sent from iPhone” is sometimes useful, and significantly shorter. If they just left it at “edited with copilot” I think it would be tolerable
3/30/2026, 5:31:33 AM
by: simonw
Which Copilot was this? There are a bunch of different products that share that name now.
3/30/2026, 5:38:40 AM
by: VBprogrammer
A little bit off topic but our company recently enforced Microsoft Authenticator for account login. Which I was mildly annoyed about but now I'm super pissed off because they have started abusing the notification permission granted to allow authenticator to work to push out ads for Microsoft 365. It feels like we've gone back to 90s Microsoft when everyone hated them.
3/30/2026, 8:11:23 AM
by: pabrams
Why are you "summoning copilot" to correct a typo?
3/30/2026, 5:30:53 AM
by: croes
Sent-from-my-iPhone 2.0
3/30/2026, 8:45:12 AM
by:
3/30/2026, 7:25:50 AM
by: gherkinnn
Obnoxious ads in LLM output was my only 2026 prediction. But I expected OpenAI to get there first and wasn't sure whether the AI companies would first add traditional ad boxes or go straight for blighted responses.
3/30/2026, 6:09:34 AM
by: napo
I wonder if 1) the PR was created using Raycast and this is the model signing its PR, or 2) if there was some prompt injection done at some point.<p>Either of these options would still be bad, but here the author suggests that it's just copilot that now just injects ads in its output.
3/30/2026, 5:39:53 AM
by: 6510
I don't see an ad, I see a warning. I like it.
3/30/2026, 8:41:13 AM
by: bryanhogan
Whatever the reason for the inclusion was here, the general problem is much bigger. People / companies / products can influence the direction of AI answers to put them in a better light and to be recommended more often. This isn't limited to just products even.
3/30/2026, 6:10:20 AM
by: andai
Man, what is the world coming to?<p>-Sent from my iPhone
3/30/2026, 8:22:21 AM
by: ZeroGravitas
Claude will add itself as a contributor to a PR, which I consider an ad.
3/30/2026, 7:10:12 AM
by: starkeeper
This is off the hook negligence and abuse they are training ads in on purpose now and think it's cool. We are doomed until it is all open source and only open source.
3/30/2026, 7:09:31 AM
by: simonjgreen
So does Claude, Codex, and Cursor. Albeit more subtle, but they are hardly shy about it
3/30/2026, 7:21:38 AM
by: pants2
Was Raycast bought by GitHub or something? Why would it be advertising for Raycast?<p>Brought to you by Wendy's.
3/30/2026, 5:28:07 AM
by: mememememememo
I miss the good old days whem there were "hire me" ads in NPM installs.
3/30/2026, 7:14:34 AM
by: rmnclmnt
Isn’t this more of a Raycast issue (apparently an agentic ai service) instead of GH Copilot itself?
3/30/2026, 6:40:10 AM
by: raincole
Is Raycast even a product of Microsoft? If not, are we witnessing the first large scale prompt injection abuse?
3/30/2026, 6:04:10 AM
by: oakpond
I notice this kind of "Sent from iPhone"-type spam with other AI tools too. It's awful.
3/30/2026, 6:00:50 AM
by: turtleyacht
Do you drive by a billboard that reads<p><pre><code> Does advertising work? Just did! </code></pre> Raycast is an application launcher thing:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raycast_(software)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raycast_(software)</a><p>Ray casting, however, is different:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_casting" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_casting</a>
3/30/2026, 5:32:45 AM
by: wiseowise
Decision time, Western man: will you let the “tehe, just a miwtake xsxd UwU” slide or will you do something about? This is just a first pebble.
3/30/2026, 7:17:20 AM
by: hexasquid
I'm so tired of what initially looks like a perfect normal communication between two people, only to find that some third party has inserted itself like a parasite to exploit and extract human attention. That's why I use our sponsor, nord vpn ...
3/30/2026, 5:25:55 AM
by: idkwhatimdoing2
Its like microsoft wants to be google, except its very intrusive.<p>time is money, save both. try ramp.
3/30/2026, 5:30:22 AM
by: Surac
as a non native speaker here please explain the meaning of PR to me.
3/30/2026, 5:44:21 AM
by: shevy-java
I have a somewhat similar problem with github issue templates. They automatically stuff I don't care about or would propose and structure things in ways I don't like. Granted, I can edited this away, but it requires extra time and makes filing issues more work than before. Biggest case in point is the "I will adhere to the Code of Conduct". In general I do not care about CoCs and it is fascinating how CoCs leak into everywhere for some so-called "open source" projects. They don't seem to understand the issue when the licence does not require a CoC; even then the issue is not about the CoC in and by itself (though I also find them pointless), but that extra content is automatically added to issue templates in general, CoCs just being one of many spam-options. And I also recall some donation-ads that are automatically added too - I have no problem when projects request financial support, but if I file an issue then the issue is about the content of the issue, not about anything else.
3/30/2026, 7:52:05 AM
by: isoprophlex
Satya "please don't say slop" Nadella eat your heart out. Magnificent amounts of value are truly being added by this tech.<p>I'll add: it doesnt really matter if this was the integration dumbly appending a message or the llm inserting the ad. Judging by the response to this submission, sneaky ad slop is now firmly inside the overton window, so for MS it doesn't make sense NOT to do it.
3/30/2026, 6:43:22 AM
by: crvdgc
People, we just solved the LLM watermarking problem.
3/30/2026, 7:11:34 AM
by: hsbauauvhabzb
It was only a matter of time.<p>Sent by my iPhone using tapatalk
3/30/2026, 5:48:46 AM
by: martianlantern
Why are they doing this?
3/30/2026, 5:35:56 AM
by: upmostly
Isn't this the same as<p>"Sent from my iPhone"?
3/30/2026, 6:50:35 AM
by: logicallee
Relevant: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal–agent_problem" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal–agent_problem</a>
3/30/2026, 6:56:35 AM
by: iomer
crappy much. wow.
3/30/2026, 6:03:57 AM
by: daemin
Using a LLM to fix a spelling mistake is retardedly lazy.<p>Presumably they used a free version of the LLM, therefore it is completely understandable that it inserted a snippet of text advertising its use into the output. I mean using a free email provider also adds a line of text to the end of every email advertising the service by default - "Sent from iPhone" etc.
3/30/2026, 5:25:10 AM
by: vcryan
I'm not a fan of LLM's injecting themselves into PR/commit content. If you use multiple models, basically whichever one is operating git gets all the credit. But, even if you wrote all the code yourself, and just submitted the PR with Claude Code (or whatever) it would attempt to take credit for the changes.<p>I currently have rules in all of my skill files forbidding models from advertising themselves or taking credit.
3/30/2026, 6:04:25 AM
by: anshumankmr
One more step closer to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAM1rSObk4c" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAM1rSObk4c</a>
3/30/2026, 5:34:33 AM
by: dinakernel
Seriously? Dont they want their system to succeed? I cant think of a better way of alienating the target customer than this.
3/30/2026, 5:24:47 AM
by: with
Everyone is doing this now. Granted, on Codex / Claude Code, you can disable it, it’s not the default to have it disabled. For some reason on Cursor, they keep shoving the “Made with Cursor” into my PR description despite me disabling attribution, which looks really stupid on a work PR.<p>I’m so tired of all this BS. Why did this become normal? and how do we not read this as cheap advertising?
3/30/2026, 5:29:18 AM
by: charcircuit
This looks like an ad for only Raycast which does not appear to be affiliated with Microsoft or GitHub at all so blaming Copilot or GitHub here is not justified.<p>Edit: The link in the promotion goes to <a href="https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/how-tos/use-copilot-agents/coding-agent/create-a-pr#asking-copilot-to-create-a-pull-request-from-raycast" rel="nofollow">https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/how-tos/use-copilot-agent...</a><p>Which does show that this is affiliated with GitHub unlike what I thought. There are no mentions of this string in a code repository on GitHub (including the Raycast copilot extention).
3/30/2026, 5:56:22 AM
by: MattGaiser
Post the trajectory if this is real.
3/30/2026, 5:54:42 AM
by: GN0515
But... why?
3/30/2026, 5:31:28 AM
by: minsung0830
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3/30/2026, 6:39:46 AM
by: claytonia
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3/30/2026, 6:02:09 AM
by: winna
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3/30/2026, 6:04:54 AM
by: treysu
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3/30/2026, 6:30:50 AM
by: 10keane
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3/30/2026, 5:42:17 AM
by: ookblah
maybe every PR should be run through 2 other llms so they just remove the ads of competitors (or i guess you'll end up with all 3) /s
3/30/2026, 6:03:08 AM