copilot

We have introduced two new powerful features to the latest Visual Studio Copilot Chat extension: slash commands (/) that allow you to direct Copilot to perform specific tasks, and context Variables (#) that allow you to specify a file for Copilot to focus its answer on. These features are available on the latest Chat extension that is compatible with Visual Studio 2022 version 17.8 and higher.

Slash Commands

Slash commands are special commands that you can use in chat to receive targeted assistance, including explanations, documentation, test creation, and various other forms of support related to your code. For example, you can use:

• /doc to add a documentation comment
• /explain to explain the code
• /fix to propose a fix for the problems in the selected code
• /generate to generate code to answer your question
• /help to get help with Copilot Chat
• /optimize to analyze and improve the running time of the selected code
• /tests to create unit tests for the selected code

Context Variables

The context variables feature enables you to add files from your solution into your questions using the # symbol. By referencing a file in this way, you allow Copilot to access the content of the file and provide more targeted answers about it. For example, you can ask “How does the #file:’Main.cs’ file work?” or “What is the purpose of the #file:’Calculator.cs’ file?” and get relevant answers from Copilot Chat. You can add multiple files to one question.

Besides these main features, you can also explore our other exciting new preview features

Join the discussion within GitHub Community.

🌐 Upcoming deprecation of Copilot Chat API endpoints

Note: If you are using the latest version of the Copilot extension for Visual Studio or VS Code or you are using the Copilot plugin for JetBrains IDEs, you will not be impacted by this change.

As we announced in September, we updated the API service endpoints used by Copilot Chat. On February 1, 2024, we will deprecate the Copilot Chat API endpoints currently being routed through https://copilot-proxy.githubusercontent.com. Instead, these requests will go through https://api.githubcopilot.com. Versions 0.8.0 and later of the Copilot Chat extension for VS Code and versions 0.1.1817.27579 and later of the Copilot Chat extension for Visual Studio already route chat traffic through https://api.githubcopilot.com. All versions of the Copilot plugin for JetBrains IDEs already route chat traffic through https://api.githubcopilot.com.

To ensure Copilot Chat continues working from February 1, 2024, please update to the most recent version of the Copilot extension and ensure your firewall and network settings allow communication to https://api.githubcopilot.com.

⏫ Update on the Copilot Enterprise Waitlist

On January 19, 2024, we will close the Copilot Enterprise waitlist in anticipation of the general availability release of Copilot Enterprise.

Join the discussion within GitHub Community.

Following our previous communication dated November 8, 2023, regarding the temporary rollback of the Copilot content exclusions feature, we are pleased to announce the re-deployment of this feature with significant enhancements. The rollout will be progressive during the next 10 days as we monitor the behaviour.

With Content Exclusion, GitHub Copilot Business customers will be able to prevent specified files or repositories from being used to inform code completion suggestions made by GitHub Copilot. GitHub Copilot will not be available in excluded files. Organization administrators or repository owners can choose which files or repositories are excluded. Learn more.

Overview of the Issue

Our team observed a critical issue where clients were incorrectly blocked from using Copilot due to the initial implementation of content exclusions. This was primarily caused by errors in fetching content exclusion policies from the client, leading to a temporary suspension of the feature.

Actions Undertaken

In response to this, our engineering team undertook a comprehensive review and rectification process. The issues identified in the client's code were addressed, and additional verifications were implemented on both server and client sides to prevent recurrence.

New Enhancements in the Re-deployed Feature

• Performance Update: We have optimized the performance of the content exclusions feature, ensuring minimal impact on the user experience.
• Extended Coverage: The feature now supports all our official Integrated Development Environments: Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEs, Visual Studio Code, and Vim/Neovim.

Current Status

• Users with pre-existing content exclusion configurations will experience no change.
• New and returning users can now utilize the enhanced feature across all supported IDEs.

Next Steps

We are closely monitoring the performance and user feedback post-deployment. The support for Copilot Chat is also in progress and will be part of the General Availability.

Join the Discussion

We value your feedback and encourage you to participate in the discussion within the GitHub Community.

This month, we made some big improvements to GitHub Copilot! Copilot Chat is now powered by GPT-4 and we updated the model used to detect off-topic chat queries. In VS Code, we are announcing the public beta of code referencing. We also introduced “agents” and the ability to generate commit messages with Copilot. In addition, we improved the context for explaining code and updated the Copilot menu UI. In JetBrains IDEs, we introduced partial acceptance of code suggestions.

Copilot Chat is powered by GPT–4

We upgraded the Copilot Chat experience, bringing more accurate and useful code suggestions with OpenAI‘s GPT–4 model.

Off–topic model improvements for Copilot Chat

As part of our safety features, we‘ve improved our off-topic model to detect chat queries which do not relate to programming. This should result in significantly fewer filtered responses.

Code referencing in VS Code is now in Public Beta

In August, we announced the Private Beta of code referencing in VS Code. This feature searches across billions of files on public GitHub repositories for code that matches a Copilot suggestion. Since then, we’ve heard your feedback, and we’re shipping with a new and redesigned experience. One of the top points of feedback was that the original flow resulted in too many notifications. To fix this, if there’s a match, users will find its information displayed in the Copilot console log, including where the match occurred, any applicable licenses, and a deep link to learn more. If you are interested in code references, you can refer to the window, otherwise, it won’t be in your way.

The deep link will now take you to a navigable page on GitHub.com to browse examples of the code match and their repository licenses, and see how many repositories — including ones without licenses — that code appears in, as well as links to those repositories.

Learn more about Copilot code referencing and let us know your thoughts in the GitHub Community!

Introducing “agents” in Copilot Chat in VS Code

We have introduced a new capability called “agents” to enhance your interaction with Copilot Chat. Agents are like specialized experts who can assist you with specific tasks. You can mention them in the chat using the @ symbol. Currently, there are two agents available:

• @workspace: This agent has knowledge about the code in your workspace and can help you navigate it by finding relevant files or classes. The @workspace agent uses a meta prompt to determine what information to collect from the workspace to help answer your question.
• @vscode: This agent is knowledgeable about commands and features in the VS Code editor itself, and can assist you in using them.

Each agent also supports slash commands. The slash commands you may have used before should now be used with an agent. For example, /explain is now @workspace /explain.

Read more in the VS Code release notes.

Improved explanation context in Copilot Chat in VS Code

You can ask Copilot Chat to explain a code selection in your active editor either through the @workspace /explain command or through the “Explain with Copilot” action in the context menu. Copilot Chat has now integrated implementations of referenced symbols, such as functions and classes, which leads to explanations that are more precise and useful. This works best across files when you have an extension contributing language services installed for one of the following languages: TypeScript/JavaScript, Python, Java, C#, C++, Go, or Ruby.

Commit message generation using Copilot in VS Code

Copilot can now generate commit messages based on the pending changes using the new “sparkle” action in the Source Control input box.

Updated Copilot menu in VS Code

Our Copilot menu in VS Code is now more visible and aligned with our design for JetBrains IDEs. It is now easier to understand the current status of Copilot, access the various settings or documentation.

The new menu is displayed when clicking on the Copilot icon in the lower right corner in the statusbar of VS Code.

JetBrains partial acceptance for code suggestions

The Copilot extension for JetBrains IDEs has leveled up! You now have the flexibility to incorporate code suggestions piece by piece, whether that’s word-by-word or line-by-line. Feel free to customize these shortcuts as you prefer. Happy coding!

We welcome your feedback on Copilot! Please join the discussion in the GitHub Community.

Shortly after releasing Copilot content exclusions on November 8, 2023, our team observed that the feature was causing clients to be incorrectly blocked from using Copilot. This necessitated an immediate rollback of this feature.

What Happened?
Once the feature was enabled for all Copilot Business customers, we observed a spike in errors and some end-users being completely blocked from using Copilot. The problem was related to the way content exclusions policies are fetched from the client.

Current Actions and Next Steps:
Our engineering team is engaged in deploying the necessary fixes. We have identified the faulty code in the client and are also deploying more verifications both server and client side to ensure this does not happen again. However, we want to approach the reintroduction of this feature with caution. Customers who had previously setup a content exclusions configuration are not affected by the rollback.

We expect to re-deploy the feature within the next few weeks.

Join the discussion within GitHub Community.

Copilot Content Exclusion is now available in Public Beta

Starting now and over the next few days GitHub Copilot Business customers will be able to prevent specified files or repositories from being used to inform code completion suggestions made by GitHub Copilot. GitHub Copilot will not be available in excluded files. Organization administrators or repository owners can choose which files or repositories are excluded. During the beta program the feature is limited to Copilot Code Completion and VSCode only. Copilot Chat and the other IDEs will shortly follow.

You can learn more about Copilot Content Exclusion or join the discussion in the GitHub Community.

Copilot Chat in JetBrains IDEs is now available in Private Beta

We are happy to announce that a private beta of GitHub Copilot Chat is now available for users of JetBrains IDEs, including IntelliJ, PyCharm, WebStorm, Android Studio, and more.
GitHub Copilot Chat is a powerful AI-assistant capable of helping every developer build at the speed of their minds in the natural language of their choice.

This private beta is available to Copilot Business customers and Copilot Individual users.

To get access to the private beta, sign up for this waitlist.

GitHub Enterprise Cloud (GHEC) administrators interested in participating in the private beta should reach out to your GitHub account manager or contact our sales team to make the feature available for your enterprise.

We’d love your feedback on this new release. Please use this link to share your feedback or ideas on how to improve the product.

A new Copilot welcome guide is available for JetBrains IDEs

We recently introduced a new welcome guide in our Copilot for JetBrains IDEs extension. Now you will be guided through the various features of GitHub Copilot and how to make the most of it!

The welcome guide will activate when you install the GitHub Copilot plugin.

Visual Studio

🤖 ARM Support

Version 1.116.0.0 of the Visual Studio extension now supports ARM.

🔒 Support for Proxies That Use Basic Authentication

Version 1.116.0.0 of the Visual Studio extension now support proxies that use a Basic Authentication scheme through an environment variable.

Visual Studio Code

🧪 Improvements to /tests Chat Command

The /test slash command is now better at detecting the testing framework you are using and will generate new tests in the same style, available with the GitHub Copilot Chat extension for Visual Studio, now in beta.

💬 Multi-Turn Chat Conversations

Chat can now refer to your previous messages to help answer your questions. To learn more about Copilot Chat beta in Visual Studio Code, head to the latest blog post.

💻 Ask GitHub Copilot defaults to the Chat view

A few months ago, we introduced an Ask GitHub Copilot option in the Command Palette so that you can take your query in the Command Palette and open it in a Copilot chat if the Command Palette didn’t provide a useful answer.

We gathered feedback on the preferred experience Ask GitHub Copilot should open: the Chat view in the side bar or Quick Chat. In an effort to make the first time experience more familiar, we chose the Chat view. With that said, if you would like Ask GitHub Copilot to open in Quick Chat, you can change the behavior with the askChatLocation setting:
“workbench.commandPalette.experimental.askChatLocation”: “quickChat”

🎨 Command Palette Similar Commands

This iteration, the Visual Studio Code team shipped the similar commands feature in the Command Palette. Copilot Chat users get an even better similar commands experience because we can use Copilot AI to determine similarity. These smarts help with synonyms and intent, and in our testing, Copilot was able to handle similarity across spoken languages as well. Finding the exact command you’re looking for in the Command Palette has never been easier!

General

📜 Enhanced Multi-Line Completions

We’ve heard your feedback and are excited to announce significant improvements to our multiline suggestions feature. ver the past several weeks, we have diligently tested and rolled out an update to enhance the number and quality of multiline suggestions. The model now does a better job of understanding when to suggest multiline code snippets, and you’ll notice that Copilot suggests multiline completions much more frequently.

This update impacts the following programming languages:
* JavaScript
* TypeScript
* Python

☀ Improved Copilot Content Filtering

We’ve introduced changes to our filtering mechanisms to incorporate more context from your environment and prompt, allowing for more accurate detection of abusive prompts and fewer false positives.

Questions, suggestions, or ideas?

Join the conversation in the Copilot community discussion. We’d love to hear from you!

Starting tomorrow Tuesday, September 26, 2023 we are updating the service endpoints for organizations with GitHub Copilot Chat beta enabled. If your organization uses a firewall to restrict network traffic, we recommend updating your allowlist to include *.githubcopilot.com if you haven’t done so already. This endpoint is required to deliver Copilot Chat messages.

If you are not ready to upgrade to this new endpoint, you can pin your GitHub Copilot Chat version to 0.7.1 or earlier.

If your organization doesn’t use a firewall to restrict network traffic, then no change is necessary. For a complete list of GitHub Copilot service endpoints, see our docs.

In today’s update, we’re showing some love to our Copilot for Business admins with the release of the Copilot settings redesign and audit log integration!

💅🏻 Copilot for Business settings update

We’ve updated the Copilot for Business admin experience to provide an overview of important information and streamline the seat purchasing flow for Copilot. Quickly review the Copilot seats assigned and estimated charges at the top of the page, update your assignment settings without having to remember to hit a Save button, and verify the update to your bill when adding or removing users and teams.

🪵 Review Copilot updates with audit log integration

Tracing updates to settings or seat assignments is key to help admins troubleshoot unexpected behavior within their organizations. Until now, admins had to contact support to help understand changes but as of today, they can now review Copilot events by using the GitHub Audit Log. To ensure administrators can quickly review Copilot updates, we included a new filter titled “Copilot Activity”. Understand settings changes, policy updates, and seat addition/removals right from the Audit Log UI in your organization settings.

Questions, suggestions, or ideas?

Join the conversation in the Copilot community discussion. We’d love to hear from you!

This week, GitHub Copilot brings you a new interactive experience with chat in Visual Studio, several updates to the chat experience in Visual Studio Code, and the arrival of an expanded context window.

Stay in the flow with Interactive Code Assistant View in Visual Studio

With the Interactive Code Assistant view, you can now refine code with Copilot Chat directly within your editor window – no need to switch to a chat window! Simply use “Ask Copilot” in your code to ask questions and view inline answers. Copilot’s code suggestions appear side by side with your code, following the Visual Studio diff view pattern. This lets you review, correct, and refine suggestions at your own pace before applying changes. Throughout the process, you remain in control. To learn more about chat in Visual Studio, head to the latest blog.

Updated /slash commands, Quick Chat improvements, and expanded context in the 1.81 release of Visual Studio Code

Save time with slash command improvements

Forget deleting commands one letter at a time. With the latest update, commands now render as blocks and can be deleted with a single backspace! We’ll also automatically execute slash commands like /clear and /help when they’re selected from the suggestion list, removing the need to explicitly submit the chat request after accepting a completion.

Updated Quick Chat experience

Prefer an ephemeral chat experience instead of a panel or in-editor one? Quickly activate this view with Shift + Cmd/Ctrl + I. In this update, we’ve added conversation history and support for slash command completion to bring it closer to our other chat experiences.

Expanded context to include the terminal

Copilot chat context now extends beyond code files, taking in the active terminal’s buffer and selection to better inform its responses.

To learn more about updates to the Visual Studio Code experience, check out the full release notes.

Expanding Copilot’s context window to 8k

We’ve officially rolled out the 8k context window for all code completion requests! 🥳 With this change, Copilot has greater flexibility to include additional information as part of requests and ultimately improve the suggestions you receive!

Questions, suggestions, or ideas?

Join the conversation in the Copilot community discussion. We’d love to hear from you!