Copilot.el
Copilot.el is an Emacs plugin for GitHub Copilot.
Warning: This plugin is unofficial and based on binaries provided by copilot.vim.
Note: You need access to GitHub Copilot to use this plugin.
Current maintainer: @emil-vdw, @jcs090218, @rakotomandimby.
Retired maintainer: @zerolfx.
Installation
-
Ensure your Emacs version is at least 27, the dependency package
editorconfig(melpa) andjsonrpc(elpa, >= 1.0.14) are both installed. -
Install copilot-node-server. (You can specify the path to its executable by setting
copilot-node-server-executable.) -
Setup
copilot.elas described in the next section. -
Login to Copilot by
M-x copilot-login. You can also check the status byM-x copilot-diagnose(NotAuthorizedmeans you don't have a valid subscription). -
Enjoy!
Configurations
Example for Doom Emacs
Details
Add package definition to ~/.doom.d/packages.el:
(package! copilot
:recipe (:host github :repo "copilot-emacs/copilot.el" :files ("*.el")))Configure copilot in ~/.doom.d/config.el:
;; accept completion from copilot and fallback to company
(use-package! copilot
:hook (prog-mode . copilot-mode)
:bind (:map copilot-completion-map
("<tab>" . 'copilot-accept-completion)
("TAB" . 'copilot-accept-completion)
("C-TAB" . 'copilot-accept-completion-by-word)
("C-<tab>" . 'copilot-accept-completion-by-word)))Strongly recommend to enable childframe option in company module ((company +childframe)) to prevent overlay conflict.
If pressing tab to complete sometimes doesn't work you might want to bind completion to another key or try:
(after! (evil copilot)
;; Define the custom function that either accepts the completion or does the default behavior
(defun my/copilot-tab-or-default ()
(interactive)
(if (and (bound-and-true-p copilot-mode)
;; Add any other conditions to check for active copilot suggestions if necessary
)
(copilot-accept-completion)
(evil-insert 1))) ; Default action to insert a tab. Adjust as needed.
;; Bind the custom function to <tab> in Evil's insert state
(evil-define-key 'insert 'global (kbd "<tab>") 'my/copilot-tab-or-default))If you would love to configure indentation here, this is an example config that may work for you:
(use-package! copilot
:hook (prog-mode . copilot-mode)
:bind (:map copilot-completion-map
("<tab>" . 'copilot-accept-completion)
("TAB" . 'copilot-accept-completion)
("C-TAB" . 'copilot-accept-completion-by-word)
("C-<tab>" . 'copilot-accept-completion-by-word)
("C-n" . 'copilot-next-completion)
("C-p" . 'copilot-previous-completion))
:config
(add-to-list 'copilot-indentation-alist '(prog-mode 2))
(add-to-list 'copilot-indentation-alist '(org-mode 2))
(add-to-list 'copilot-indentation-alist '(text-mode 2))
(add-to-list 'copilot-indentation-alist '(closure-mode 2))
(add-to-list 'copilot-indentation-alist '(emacs-lisp-mode 2)))
Example for Spacemacs
Details
Edit your ~/.spacemacs:
;; ===================
;; dotspacemacs/layers
;; ===================
;; add or uncomment the auto-completion layer
dotspacemacs-configuration-layers
'(
...
auto-completion
...
)
;; add copilot.el to additional packages
dotspacemacs-additional-packages
'((copilot :location (recipe
:fetcher github
:repo "copilot-emacs/copilot.el"
:files ("*.el"))))
;; ========================
;; dotspacemacs/user-config
;; ========================
;; accept completion from copilot and fallback to company
(with-eval-after-load 'company
;; disable inline previews
(delq 'company-preview-if-just-one-frontend company-frontends))
(with-eval-after-load 'copilot
(define-key copilot-completion-map (kbd "<tab>") 'copilot-accept-completion)
(define-key copilot-completion-map (kbd "TAB") 'copilot-accept-completion)
(define-key copilot-completion-map (kbd "C-TAB") 'copilot-accept-completion-by-word)
(define-key copilot-completion-map (kbd "C-<tab>") 'copilot-accept-completion-by-word))
(add-hook 'prog-mode-hook 'copilot-mode)General Configurations
Details
1. Load copilot.el
Option 1: Load via use-package (recommended)
Emacs 27-29:
straight.el:
(use-package copilot
:straight (:host github :repo "copilot-emacs/copilot.el" :files ("*.el"))
:ensure t)quelpa + quelpa-use-package:
(use-package copilot
:quelpa (copilot :fetcher github
:repo "copilot-emacs/copilot.el"
:branch "main"
:files ("*.el")))On Emacs version 30+:
(use-package copilot
:vc (:url "https://github.com/copilot-emacs/copilot.el"
:rev :newest
:branch "main"))Use :map :hook and :config to customize copilot.el via use-package.
Option 3: Load manually
Please make sure you have these dependencies installed (available in ELPA/MELPA):
dashseditorconfig
After installing those, clone this repository then insert the below snippet into your config file.
(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/copilot.el")
(require 'copilot)2. Configure completion
Option 1: Use copilot-mode to automatically provide completions
(add-hook 'prog-mode-hook 'copilot-mode)To customize the behavior of copilot-mode, please check copilot-enable-predicates and copilot-disable-predicates.
Option 2: Manually provide completions
You need to bind copilot-complete to some key and call copilot-clear-overlay inside post-command-hook.
3. Configure completion acceptation
Use tab to accept completions (you may also want to bind copilot-accept-completion-by-word to some key):
(define-key copilot-completion-map (kbd "<tab>") 'copilot-accept-completion)
(define-key copilot-completion-map (kbd "TAB") 'copilot-accept-completion)Programming language detection
Copilot.el detects the programming language of a buffer based on the major-mode name, stripping the -mode part. Resulting languageId should match table here.
You can add unusual major-mode mappings to copilot-major-mode-alist. Without the proper language set suggestions may be of poorer quality.
(add-to-list 'copilot-major-mode-alist '("enh-ruby" . "ruby"))Commands
copilot-diagnose
Check the current status of the plugin. Also you can check logs in the *copilot events* buffer and stderr output in the *copilot stderr* buffer.
copilot-login
Login to GitHub, required for using the plugin.
copilot-mode
Enable/disable copilot mode.
copilot-complete
Try to complete at the current point.
copilot-accept-completion
Accept the current completion.
copilot-clear-overlay
Clear copilot overlay in the current buffer.
copilot-accept-completion-by-line / copilot-accept-completion-by-word
Similar to copilot-accept-completion, but accept the completion by line or word. You can use prefix argument to specify the number of lines or words to accept.
copilot-next-completion / copilot-previous-completion
Cycle through the completion list.
copilot-logout
Log out from GitHub.
Customization
copilot-node-server-executable
The executable path of copilot-node-server.
copilot-idle-delay
Time in seconds to wait before starting completion (default to 0). Note Copilot itself has a ~100ms delay because of network communication.
copilot-enable-predicates / copilot-disable-predicates
A list of predicate functions with no argument to enable/disable triggering Copilot in copilot-mode.
copilot-enable-display-predicates / copilot-disable-display-predicates
A list of predicate functions with no argument to enable/disable showing Copilot's completions in copilot-mode.
copilot-clear-overlay-ignore-commands
A list of commands that won't cause the overlay to be cleared.
copilot-network-proxy
Format: '(:host "127.0.0.1" :port 7890 :username: "user" :password: "password"), where :username and :password are optional.
For example:
(setq copilot-network-proxy '(:host "127.0.0.1" :port 7890))Known Issues
Wrong Position of Other Completion Popups
This is an example of using together with default frontend of company-mode. Because both company-mode and copilot.el use overlay to show completion, so the conflict is inevitable.
To solve the problem, I recommend you to use company-box (only available on GUI), which is based on child frame rather than overlay.
After using company-box, you have:
In other editors (e.g. VS Code, PyCharm), completions from copilot and other sources can not show at the same time.
But I decided to allow them to coexist, allowing you to choose a better one at any time.
Cursor Jump to End of Line When Typing
- If you are using
whitespace-mode, make sure to removenewline-markfromwhitespace-style.
Reporting Bugs
- Make sure you have restarted your Emacs (and rebuild the plugin if necessary) after updating the plugin.
- Please enable event logging by customize
copilot-log-max(to e.g. 1000), then paste related logs in the*copilot events*and*copilot stderr*buffer. - If an exception is thrown, please also paste the stack trace (use
M-x toggle-debug-on-errorto enable stack trace).
Roadmap
- Setup Copilot without Neovim
- Cycle through suggestions
- Add Copilot minor-mode
-
Add package to MELPA
Thanks
These projects helped me a lot:
- https://github.com/TommyX12/company-tabnine/
- https://github.com/cryptobadger/flight-attendant.el
- https://github.com/github/copilot.vim
If you want chat with github copilot?
Just like copilot plugin for intellij or vscode?
Please take a look at copilot-chat.el


