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Copilot Cloud Agent gets intermittent access denied errors #3041

@vgithib

Description

@vgithib

Describe the bug

We are using copilot coding agent mode for working on github issues and have instructed copilot to use the report_progress tool to push files to remote since github cli (git push command gets a 'The push failed due to access permissions') and github api (gets 'The GITHUB_TOKEN doesn't have write access via git push or the git API') both get an error.

Although the report_progress seems to work most of the times, it shows following intermittent issues:

Copilot report_progress tool gets access denied error "remote: Write access to repository not granted.fatal: unable to access 'https://github.com/...': The requested URL returned error: 403" randomly even though it has pushed successfully in the same session earlier, where it had got a "Progress reported successfully." result after invoking the tool.

We have also tried instructing copilot to use just the github_mcp_server/push_files tool, but that has below issues:
a. Despite clear instruction to not use the report_progress tool, copilot will still attempt to use it (and may succeed which causes another issue as below)
b. Later, it may use the github_mcp_server/push_files but that leads to git rebase errors as there seem to be two users it users that do the push via report_progress Vs github_mcp_server/push_files

Could you pl advise on how to avoid intermittent access denied errors

Thanks

Affected version

Multiple versions of cloud agent

Steps to reproduce the behavior

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Expected behavior

Should not get access denied error and be able to push code successfully

Additional context

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    area:authenticationLogin, OAuth, device auth, token management, and keychain integrationarea:toolsBuilt-in tools: file editing, shell, search, LSP, git, and tool call behavior

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