GitHub reports critical impact on Copilot Cloud Agent task creation, unresolved at 16:14 UTC

Sources: GitHub Status incident page, GitHub Status incidents API, a rolling feed
Summary: GitHub opened the incident at 14:43 UTC on 2026-08-20 stating impacted performance for some GitHub services, and first named Copilot Cloud Agent at 14:51 UTC. The 15:41 UTC update reports that newly started tasks do not properly display ongoing progress. The 16:14 UTC update states that users cannot see the status of these tasks and that Copilot Cloud Agent tasks are still being completed. GitHub classifies the impact as critical. The incident was still open at 16:14 UTC. Status is developing, because the incident is live rather than closed and no root cause statement has been published.
Why it matters: GitHub classifies the impact as critical, and an agent whose task status cannot be read is an agent a team cannot supervise, even while the tasks themselves complete.
Follow-up: Track the resolution time and any root cause analysis GitHub publishes for this incident.