LLM + MCP Use Case: GitHub Actions Workflow Updates
One use case for LLM coding tools (GitHub Copilot, in this case) I've found recently is updating the dependencies of GitHub Actions workflows.
In a professional context this is done with manual review of the updates, of course, but given I have a huge number of personal repositories to keep up-to-date, for personal use I'm quite satisfied with the results from GitHub Copilot's "agent" mode.
To do this, I open the "Agents" panel in the GitHub web UI:
And I enter the following prompt:
Update all GitHub Actions in this repo's workflows to their latest major versions. Use your GitHub MCP tool to verify each action's latest version. Let me know if there are any breaking changes.
Telling Copilot to use its GitHub tool is important â otherwise, it uses the tool about half the time, and the other half it makes incorrect guesses about versions based on its training data.
The resulting PR typically looks like this one, and the resulting diff is typically exactly identical to what I'd produce if I'd done the work manually:
