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Metal Birds Watch: Copilot CLI Helped Me Watch Planes Without Looking Up

Giorgi Kobaidze on February 13, 2026

This is a submission for the GitHub Copilot CLI Challenge Table of Contents Demo What I Built The Idea So, What Does It Do? Turns O...
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david duymelinck

The thing I'm missing in the code are tests. Did you only use manual tests to check if the code works?

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Giorgi Kobaidze

Hi David,

That's right, for now I decided not to go down the testing rabbit hole. Since this is still a beta version and I built it specifically for the challenge with a deadline this weekend (just made it in time), I decided it was better to focus on implementing as many features as possible within the available time. I manually tested everything thoroughly, and once the challenge is over, I plan to properly invest time in adding automated tests, as well as the future features shown in the "What's Next?" window on the website.

Good observation!

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david duymelinck

AI helps you writing tests. So It takes less time generating tests, letting them get verified by AI than doing the testing manually. I think you missed an opportunity to let AI generation shine when it comes to code quality.

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Giorgi Kobaidze

You're right, AI is pretty good at writing tests. However when I write anything, whether it's source code or tests, I always make sure I don't just delegate the task fully to the AI, I still need to be the "main pilot", checking and verifying everything. I'd like to write tests methodically and with a good strategy to make sure the tests are thorough, cover all the edge cases, and don't assume wrong things.

But that's alright, because this is not it for this application. I'm going to continue maintaining and enriching with features and missing technical stuff.

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david duymelinck

Wanting to be the main pilot is a good attitude. I call you captain from now on 😊

My perceptive is to write tests as soon as possible. Without AI we had to allocate time to write tests, but with AI that time is negligible.

And by writing tests AI can make corrections when the code has been hallucinated. So you are not only helping yourself.

I get the point you want to write quality tests. But in a crunch any test is better than none.

The more I learn about using AI I find that you need to let go of non-AI work methods strategically. As a captain you can rely on your board computer to take over the boring tasks.

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Giorgi Kobaidze

Great insights. There are so many ways to go about it. And we're absolutely on the same page, I also think that tests are not optional. That's why implementing them are one of my top priorities once the challenge is over. I'm already so excited to see how Copilot helps me write them.

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Cesar Castillo

Wow !!! love it

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Giorgi Kobaidze

Thank you Cesar! 🤝

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John A Madrigal

Very unique idea keeping track of the "birds" in the sky. This is connection with a SDR radio receiver would work pretty awesome together. Could keep track of the flight and radio it comes from.

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Giorgi Kobaidze

Haven’t thought about that, sounds like fun, but I think I’ll just stick with just the API data for a while. 😄

Thank you!

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Gregory Starr

thankss, u just saved me from having to build this!! one question, does it include all aircraft, say drones as well? what would be needed to include that capability?

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Giorgi Kobaidze • Edited

I’m glad you found it useful😄

Drones most likely won’t be included, because I highly doubt the OpenSky API provides data about them.

If you want to track personal or custom drones, it becomes even more complex problem. Third-party aviation APIs generally focus on commercial aircraft and ADS-B-equipped planes, not hobbyist or privately operated drones. In most cases, those drones don’t broadcast publicly accessible data the way commercial aircraft do so they won’t just “appear” on a map through a simple API call.

If you want to track drones in your web application the same way you track airplanes, you’ll likely need to build a custom solution for your own drones.

What I think you need is a GPS-based telemetry.

Your drones should be attached with a GPS module, onboard communication module (4G, LTE or even 5G) and a firmware that’ll send location data from that drone to your backend.

Your backend will receive data using HTTP or MQTT, process it and send back to your front-end.

The front-end web application then displays your drone on the map.

Actually, thinking of it right now, that is a brilliant idea. Are you planning to build something like that?