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, @rakotomandimby.

Retired maintainer: @zerolfx.

Installation

0. Ensure your Emacs version is at least 27, and the dependency package editorconfig (melpa) is also installed.

1. Install Node.js v18+. (You can specify the path to node executable by setting copilot-node-executable.)

2. Setup copilot.el as described in the next section.

3. Login to Copilot by M-x copilot-login. You can also check the status by M-x copilot-diagnose (NotAuthorized means you don't have a valid subscription).

4. Enjoy!

Configurations

Example for Doom Emacs

Add package definition to ~/.doom.d/packages.el:

(package! copilot
  :recipe (:host github :repo "copilot-emacs/copilot.el" :files ("*.el" "dist")))

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))

Example for Spacemacs

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" "dist"))))

;; ========================
;; 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

1. Load copilot.el

Option 1: Load via straight.el or quelpa (recommended)

straight.el:

(use-package copilot
  :straight (:host github :repo "copilot-emacs/copilot.el" :files ("dist" "*.el"))
  :ensure t)
;; you can utilize :map :hook and :config to customize copilot

quelpa + quelpa-use-package:

(use-package copilot
  :quelpa (copilot :fetcher github
                   :repo "copilot-emacs/copilot.el"
                   :branch "main"
                   :files ("dist" "*.el")))
;; you can utilize :map :hook and :config to customize copilot

Option 2: Load manually

Please make sure you have these dependencies installed (available in ELPA/MELPA):

• dash
• s
• editorconfig

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

Logout from GitHub.

Customization

copilot-node-executable

The executable path of Node.js.

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 remove newline-mark from whitespace-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-error to 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