Adding personal custom instructions for GitHub Copilot

You can add personal instructions for GitHub Copilot Chat to customize chat responses for your conversations.

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Note

  • Personal custom instructions for GitHub Copilot are in public preview and subject to change.
  • Personal custom instructions are currently only supported for GitHub Copilot Chat in GitHub.

About personal custom instructions for GitHub Copilot Chat

You can add instructions for GitHub Copilot Chat in order to receive chat responses that are customized to your personal preferences, across your conversations on the GitHub website. Your saved instructions will not be displayed in the chat, but they are automatically provided to Copilot so that it can provide responses aligned with your personal preferences.

For example, you can choose to always have Copilot Chat respond in a preferred language or with a particular style. Some examples of instructions you could add are:

  • Always respond in Spanish.
  • Your style is a helpful colleague, minimize explanations but provide enough context to understand the code.
  • Always provide examples in TypeScript.

Personal custom instructions apply to conversations that you, as a user, have with Copilot Chat across GitHub, and are different from repository custom instructions, which apply to conversations in the context of a single repository. For more information on repository instructions, see Adding repository custom instructions for GitHub Copilot.

Note

Personal custom instructions take priority over repository custom instructions, but both are incorporated into the final prompt provided to Copilot Chat. Whenever possible, you should avoid providing conflicting personal and repository instructions. If you are concerned about response quality, you can also choose to temporarily disable repository instructions. For more information, see Adding repository custom instructions for GitHub Copilot.

Adding personal custom instructions

  1. In the top right of any page on GitHub, click the GitHub Copilot icon next to the search bar.

  2. Select the dropdown menu at the top of the Chat panel, then click Customize GitHub Copilot. If in the immersive view, select the dropdown menu at the top right of the page, then click Personal instructions.

  3. Add natural language instructions to the text box.

    The instructions can be written as a single paragraph, each on a new line, or separated by blank lines for legibility.

  4. Click Save. Your instructions are now active, and will stay active until you change or remove them.