Field note
GitHub's legal team described two internally built Copilot CLI workflows: a terms-review assistant and a broader legal workflow application. The builders were legal professionals rather than software engineers.
The repository contains plain-language Markdown instructions, drafting resources, playbooks, risk-scoring criteria, and approved agreements inside an access-controlled environment. Reusable skills and agents handle intake, playbook alignment, evidence verification, escalation, and report assembly.
One author reports cutting review and drafting time roughly in half. That is a self-reported case result, not a controlled productivity study. More importantly, the system does not delegate legal judgment: lawyers review facts, exceptions, risk, and the final language.
The transferable pattern is repository-based professional work. Instructions, source material, decision criteria, generated artifacts, and escalation rules share version history. The CLI is valuable because it works inside that evidence boundary rather than hiding the process in a separate chat.