Asking GitHub Copilot questions in your IDE

Prerequisites

• Access to GitHub Copilot. See 什么是 GitHub Copilot？.
• Visual Studio Code 的最新版本。 请参阅 Visual Studio Code 下载页面。
• GitHub Copilot 扩展 - 从 Visual Studio 市场中安装此扩展。 有关更多信息，请参阅 Microsoft 文档中的“在 Visual Studio Code 中设置 GitHub Copilot”。
• 在 Visual Studio Code 中登录到 GitHub。 如果遇到身份验证问题，请参阅“排查 IDE 中 GitHub Copilot Chat 的问题”。

如果可通过组织 或企业 访问 GitHub Copilot，则如果组织所有者 或企业管理员 禁用了聊天，你将无法使用 GitHub Copilot Chat。 请参阅“管理组织中的 Copilot 策略”。

Submitting prompts

You can ask Copilot Chat to give code suggestions, explain code, generate unit tests, and suggest code fixes.

1. 若要打开聊天视图，请单击活动栏中的聊天图标或按 Control+Command+i (Mac) / Ctrl+Alt+i (Windows/Linux)。

   

   Tip

   For additional ways to access Copilot Chat, including inline with your code, see Additional ways to access Copilot Chat below.

2. Enter a prompt in the prompt box, or click one of the suggested prompts. For an introduction to the kinds of prompts you can use, see Getting started with prompts for Copilot Chat.

3. Evaluate Copilot's response, and make a follow up request if needed.

   The response may contain text, code blocks, buttons, images, URIs, and file trees. The response often includes interactive elements. For example, the response may include a menu to insert a code block, or a button to invoke a Visual Studio Code command.

   To see the files that Copilot Chat used to generate the response, select the Used n references dropdown at the top of the response. The references may include a link to a custom instructions file for your repository. This file contains additional information that is automatically added to all of your chat questions to improve the quality of the responses. For more information, see Adding repository custom instructions for GitHub Copilot.

Using keywords in your prompt

You can use special keywords to help Copilot understand your prompt. For examples, see Getting started with prompts for Copilot Chat.

Chat participants

Chat participants are like domain experts who have a specialty that they can help you with.

Copilot Chat can infer relevant chat participants based on your natural language prompt, improving discovery of advanced capabilities without you having to explicitly specify the participant you want to use in your prompt.

Alternatively, you can manually specify a chat participant to scope your prompt to a specific domain. To do this, type @ in the chat prompt box, followed by a chat participant name.

For a list of available chat participants, type @ in the chat prompt box. See also GitHub Copilot Chat cheat sheet or Chat participants in the Visual Studio Code documentation.

Copilot Extensions chat participants

You can also install Copilot Extensions that provide chat participants. You can install these extensions from GitHub Marketplace and from Visual Studio Code Marketplace. For information about extensions from GitHub Marketplace that provide chat participants, see 使用扩展将外部工具与 Copilot Chat 集成.

Slash commands

Use slash commands to avoid writing complex prompts for common scenarios. To use a slash command, type / in the chat prompt box, followed by a command.

To see all available slash commands, type / in the chat prompt box. 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. To use a chat variable, type # in the chat prompt box, followed by a chat variable.

To see all available chat variables, type # in the chat prompt box. See also GitHub Copilot Chat cheat sheet or Chat variables in the Visual Studio Code documentation.

Using GitHub skills for Copilot

Copilot's GitHub-specific skills expand the type of information Copilot can provide. To access these skills in Copilot Chat, include @github in your question.

When you add @github to a question, Copilot dynamically selects an appropriate skill, based on the content of your question. You can also explicitly ask Copilot Chat to use a particular skill. You can do this in two ways:

• Use natural language to ask Copilot Chat to use a skill. For example, @github Search the web to find the latest GPT model from OpenAI.
• To specifically invoke a web search you can include the #web variable in your question. For example, @github #web What is the latest LTS of Node.js?

You can generate a list of currently available skills by asking Copilot: @github What skills are available?

Asking a question about a knowledge base

Organization owners can create knowledge bases, grouping together Markdown documentation across one or more repositories. For more information, see 管理 Copilot 知识库.

You can tell Copilot to answer a question within the context of a knowledge base.

1. At the bottom of the Copilot Chat window, in the Ask Copilot or type / for commands text box, type @github #kb, then press Enter to open the knowledge base selector.
2. Pick one of your available knowledge bases using the arrow keys, then press Enter.
3. In the Ask Copilot or type / for commands text box, continue your message with your question, and then press Enter.
4. Copilot Chat will process your question and provide an answer, with citations from your knowledge base, in the chat window.

AI models for Copilot Chat

你可以更改 Copilot 用来生成聊天提示响应的大型语言模型。 你可能会发现性能更好的不同模型，或提供更有用响应的模型，具体取决于你提出的问题类型。 有关详细信息，请参阅“正在更改 Copilot Chat 的 AI 模型”。

Additional ways to access Copilot Chat

In addition to submitting prompts through the chat view, you can submit prompts in other ways:

• Inline: To start an inline chat directly in the editor or integrated terminal, enter Command+i (Mac) / Ctrl+i (Windows/Linux).
• Quick chat: To open the quick chat dropdown, enter Shift+Command+i (Mac) / Shift+Ctrl+i (Windows/Linux)
• Smart actions: To submit prompts via the context menu, right click in your editor, select Copilot in the menu that appears, then select one of the actions. Smart actions can also be accessed via the sparkle icon that sometimes appears when you select a line of code.

See inline chat, quick chat, and chat smart actions in the Visual Studio Code documentation for more details.

Copilot Edits

使用 Copilot Edits 直接从单个 Copilot Chat 提示跨多个文件进行更改。 Copilot Edits 具有以下模式：

• 编辑模式：当你想要对 Copilot 建议的编辑进行更精细的控制时，请使用编辑模式。 在编辑模式下，选择 Copilot 可以更改的文件，在每次迭代时为 Copilot 提供上下文，并确定是否在每次迭代后接受建议的编辑。
• 代理模式（公共预览版）：当你有特定任务需要处理并且希望 Copilot 能够自主编辑你的代码时，请使用代理模式。 在代理模式下，Copilot 会确定要更改的文件、提供代码更改和终端命令来完成任务，并进行迭代来修正问题，直到原始任务完成。

Using edit mode

1. To start an edit session, select Open Copilot Edits from the Copilot Chat menu.
2. Optionally, add relevant files to the working set to indicate to GitHub Copilot which files you want to work on.
3. Submit a prompt. In response to your prompt, Copilot Edits determines which files in your working set to change and adds a short description of the change.
4. Review the changes and Apply or Discard the edits for each file.

For more detailed instructions, see Copilot Edits in the Visual Studio Code documentation.

Using agent mode

1. To start an edit session, select Open Copilot Edits from the Copilot Chat menu.
2. Select Agent from the mode dropdown menu.
3. Submit a prompt. In response to your prompt, Copilot streams the edits in the editor, updates the working set, and if necessary, suggests terminal commands to run.
4. Review the changes. If Copilot suggested terminal commands, confirm whether or not Copilot can run them. In response, Copilot iterates and performs additional actions to complete the task in your original prompt.

For more information, see Copilot Edits in the Visual Studio Code documentation.

Vision

Vision requires that you use the GPT-4o model and upload one of the following file types: JPEG (.jpg, .jpeg), PNG (.png), GIF (.gif), or WEBP (.webp).

You can attach images to your chat prompts to help Copilot understand your question. For example, you can attach a screenshot of a code snippet to ask Copilot to explain the code, or share mockups of new designs to ask Copilot to generate code.

You can drag and drop images into the chat window, or attach them through the VS Code UI.

Sharing feedback

To indicate whether a response was helpful, use the thumbs up and thumbs down icons that appear next to the response.

To leave feedback about the GitHub Copilot Chat extension, open an issue in the microsoft/vscode-copilot-release repository.

Further reading

• Prompt engineering for Copilot Chat
• Using Copilot Chat in VS Code and Getting started with GitHub Copilot Chat in VS Code in the Visual Studio Code documentation
• Asking GitHub Copilot questions in GitHub
• 在 IDE 中负责任地使用 GitHub Copilot Chat
• GitHub 附加产品和功能条款
• GitHub Copilot Trust Center
• GitHub Copilot FAQ