You can use Copilot with the GitHub CLI to get suggestions and explanations for the command line.

Use Copilot on the command line - See Using GitHub Copilot in the command line. GitHub Copilot provides coding suggestions as you type in your editor. You can also ask Copilot coding-related questions, such as how best to code something, how to fix …

Asking GitHub Copilot questions in your IDE. Use Copilot Chat in your editor to give you code suggestions, explain code, generate unit tests, and suggest code fixes.

If you use Visual Studio Code, GitHub Copilot can help you with a variety of tasks, including generating code suggestions, explaining how the code in your editor works, and suggesting edits based on your instructions. You can enable or disable GitHub Copilot, and configure advanced settings within Visual Studio Code or on GitHub.

Some of the following example prompts use chat participants (preceded by @), slash commands (preceded by /), or chat variables (preceded by #). For more information on keywords in prompts, see Asking GitHub Copilot questions in your IDE. Ask general software questions. You can ask Copilot Chat general software questions. For example:

Using GitHub Copilot in the command line. Using extensions to integrate external tools with Copilot Chat. AI models for Copilot. Changing the AI model for Copilot Chat. Changing the AI model for Copilot code completion. Using Claude Sonnet in Copilot Chat. Using Gemini 2.0 Flash in Copilot Chat.

GitHub Copilot in the CLI provides a chat-like interface in the terminal that allows you to ask questions about the command line. You can ask GitHub Copilot to provide either command suggestions or explanations of given commands.

To allow Copilot in the CLI to execute commands, you must run the following commands to create the aliases (as opposed to creating an alias like you would for another shell command). After executing the following commands to create the aliases, you can run ghcs and ghce instead of gh copilot suggest and gh copilot explain .

A prompt is a request that you make to GitHub Copilot. For example, a question that you ask Copilot Chat, or a code snippet that you ask Copilot to complete. In addition to your prompt, Copilot uses additional context, like the code in your current file and the chat history, to …

See also GitHub Copilot Chat cheat sheet or Slash commands in the Visual Studio Code documentation. Chat variables Use chat variables to include specific context in your prompt.