GitHub Copilot in VS Code cheat sheet

GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio Code provides AI-powered features to help you write code faster and with less effort. This cheat sheet provides a quick overview of the features for GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio Code.

You can access GitHub Copilot in VS Code through the Chat view, directly in the editor, from the integrated terminal, and via AI-powered enhancements in the VS Code user interface.

The team is continuously working on improving Copilot in VS Code and adding new features. Items in the cheat sheet marked with are experimental features. Try them out and share your feedback in our issues.

Chat with GitHub Copilot

Use natural language to chat with GitHub Copilot and get help with coding tasks. For example, ask Copilot to explain a block of code or a programming concept. Get more information about using Copilot Chat.

Tips

• Use / commands and @ participants to get more precise and relevant answers.
• Be specific, keep it simple, and ask follow-up questions to get the best results.
• Provide context by attaching files, symbols, or selections to your chat prompt.

Code editing session (Preview)

Use Copilot Edits to start a code editing session where you can iterate quickly on AI-generated code edits that are applied directly across multiple files in your workspace.

Tips

• Add all files for which you want to get edits to the working set.
• Be specific and precise about the changes you want Copilot Edits to make.
• If you have a larger task, decompose it in smaller tasks and iterate often.

Generate code from chat

Copilot can generate code blocks in response to your chat prompts. Quickly apply the generated code in your project or insert it in a new file. For example, ask Copilot to optimize an algorithm in your code.

Tips

• Provide details about the framework or libraries to use.
• Consider creating custom code-generation instructions.

Attach context to your prompt

When you send a chat prompt to Copilot, you can attach context to help Copilot understand your question better. For example, add the current editor selection, a file, or a symbol to your chat prompt. Get more information about best practices for using Copilot.

Tips

• Quickly add multiple files as context by using the right arrow key in the Quick Pick
• Explicitly include relevant context by selecting code or mentioning chat variables
• Review the used references in the chat response to ensure that the context is relevant

Copilot in the editor

As you're coding in the editor, you can use Copilot to generate code completions as you're typing. Invoke Inline Chat to ask questions and get help from Copilot, while staying in the flow of coding. For example, ask Copilot to generate unit tests for a function or method. Get more information about code completions and Inline Chat.

Tips

• Use meaningful method or function names to get better code completions quicker.
• Select a code block to scope your Inline Chat prompt or attach relevant context by attaching files or symbols.
• Use the editor context menu options to access common Copilot actions directly from the editor.

Customize AI code generation

Copilot can generate responses that match the coding style, tools, and developer workflow of your team or project, provided it has the right context. You can provide custom instructions to help Copilot adjust to your preferences, so that you don't have to provide these details every time you make a Copilot request. These custom instructions are automatically added to your requests. Get more information about customizing Copilot in VS Code.

Tips

• Define language-specific instructions to get more accurate generated code for each language.
• Store your instructions in a file to easily share them with your team and across projects.

Review code (Preview)

Copilot can do a quick review pass of a code block or perform a review of uncommitted changes in your workspace. Review feedback shows up as comments in the editor, where you can apply the suggestions.

Generate tests

Copilot can generate tests for functions and methods in your codebase. Get more information about slash commands in Chat.

Tips

• Provide details about the testing frameworks or libraries to use.

Generate documentation

Generate code documentation for functions and methods in your codebase. Get more information about slash commands in Chat.

Debug and fix problems

Use Copilot to help fix coding problems and to get help with configuring and starting debugging sessions in VS Code.

Tips

• Provide additional information about the type of fix you need, such as optimizing the memory consumption or performance.
• Watch for Copilot Code Actions in the editor that indicate suggestions for fixing problems in your code.

Scaffold a new project

Copilot can help you create a new project by generating a scaffold of the project structure, or generate a notebook based on your requirements.

Source control and issues

Copilot can analyze the changes in your commits and pull requests and provide suggestions for commit messages and pull request descriptions.

Search

Use Copilot to get more relevant search results in the Search view.

Terminal

Get help about shell commands and how to resolve errors when running commands in the terminal.

Python and Notebook support

You can use Copilot Chat to help you with Python programming tasks in the Native Python REPL and in Jupyter notebooks.

VS Code commands and APIs

You can use Copilot to get help about VS Code features, settings, and the VS Code extension APIs. Get more information about chat participants.

Tips

• Use the #vscodeAPI chat variable if you're asking about the VS Code extension API.

Next steps

• Tutorial: Get started with GitHub Copilot in VS Code