.copilotignore support

[linux-china]

Too much discussion about GitHub Copilot telemetry for internal projects, and I want to use Copilot for internal projects too, such as Makefile, Shell scripts, some unit tests etc, and they are not sensitive, and Copilot can save my life to edit these files.

Lots of ignore files now, for example:

How about to introduce .copilotignore file, and GitHub Copilot plugin will ignore these files for AI assistance to avoid telemetry problem.

src/main
pom.xml
.env

[rampatra]

Is there any progress or thoughts on this? Or, is there a different way now to ignore files being sent to Microsoft, now that we have GitHub Copilot for enterprise?

And, even if I disable this setting, my code is still being sent to Microsoft for Copilot to work, am I correct?

[asheroto]

Curious about this as well.

Came from https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/11254

[neverbot]

Copilot Chat seems to think that .copilotignore is already working:

And VS Code - Insiders detects the file and gives it its own icon:

But cannot confirm if it is really doing something.

[pjg]

Doesn't work when I tried this using vim's copilot plugin.

[Volosojui]

It still doesn't work in vscode. it's a pity

[jakemayfield]

Doesn't work for me in vscode or neovim.
I think the llm was hallucinating on the use of .copilotignore.

[linux-china]

@neverbot it does not work.

[vinaypotluri]

Any update on when this will be supported ?

[Weemee]

Seems to be working now :)
VSCode v1.78.2 (commit: b3e4e68a0bc097f0ae7907b217c1119af9e03435)
GitHub Copilot v1.88.132

[spenserblack]

This is only for the VS Code plugin, right? I'm assuming this doesn't work with the vim plugin.

[asheroto]

Looks like this is pretty buggy at the moment. They might still be working on it.

The message that says "Copilot is ignoring this file" does come up, but after typing some and saving, it disappears and stops working. I tried opening a js file directly, and opening a folder and then the file, same issue.

If I disable Copilot and re-enable, it detects .copilotignore for a few seconds, shows that icon with the strike through it and the message, but then it forgets about it after typing and saving. The other weird thing is that if the .copilotignore file is open, it detects it quickly, but then when I switch back to another file and start typing it forgets about it and the icon changes back.

Code_LE4aB4pmiP.mp4

Also curious to know if:

• It will work in subfolders or must you put it in the root of the project?
• Will it work if you open a file within a folder containing .copilotignore but not the project folder itself?

Version info
GitHub Copilot v1.88.132
Version: 1.78.2 (system setup)
Commit: b3e4e68a0bc097f0ae7907b217c1119af9e03435
Date: 2023-05-10T14:39:26.248Z
Electron: 22.5.2
Chromium: 108.0.5359.215
Node.js: 16.17.1
V8: 10.8.168.25-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.22621
Sandboxed: No

[stormdz2]

To continue what @asheroto said, this feature seems to be implemented in UI only, the moment I type in any ignored file it immediately enables copilot again. It's also not mentioned anywhere in the actual documentation so I'm thinking this is not actually implemented. Happens in both nightly and normal release, using ubuntu and copilot 1.88.136.

[Weemee]

I could re-create what @asheroto showed in their video, so I decided to go deeper, but didn't find any solution for the use of a .copilotignore file. For VS Code users using the official Copilot plugin for VS Code you can edit this in the settings. Does however not help the original problem posted by @linux-china, but can hopefully help some of you until the .copilotignore file is fully implemented.

[stormdz2]

In the most recent versions even just the visual indicators of copilotignore supposedly working have dissapeared, it wasn't working anyway but now it's not vague anymore whether or not it is implemented, it isn't.

[hiago-balbino]

Any update about this?

[deiv061]

Any news about this?

[panozzaj]

Since I am subscribed to this issue and use the Vim version of Copilot, I asked ChatGPT about this:

https://chat.openai.com/share/bae6b22c-31f1-435f-aac0-05812fbe7c73
(No idea if this works, but seems at least reasonable. You'd need to change to use b:copilot_enabled at least.)

Maybe there is an equivalent plugin for VSCode?

[panozzaj]

With some iteration, I ended up turning this into a Vim plugin that seems to do what I wanted it to:
https://github.com/panozzaj/vim-copilot-ignore

[JulienVilleneau]

Anyone know when this feature will be available in GA ?

[JulienVilleneau]

A first answer during GitHub Universe 2023 : https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/managing-copilot-business/configuring-content-exclusions-for-github-copilot

[asheroto]

Thanks for sharing.

Unfortunately looks like it may only be available with GitHub Copilot Business users which costs $19/month/user compared to the individual $10/month/user. Source.

Maybe .copilotignore will come along one day?

Looks like this .copilotignore request is discussed a lot in the community:
https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions?discussions_q=copilotignore

[ELLIOTTCABLE]

Does the business version even support their own GitHub Enterprise? The instructions are all about public, GitHub.com interfaces to click on — nothing about a filename or anything.

How would I configure this for our organization's GitHub Enterprise-hosted repositories, which we edit in VScode? /=

[spookyuser]

pls

[NoCopy]

How about to introduce .copilotignore file, and GitHub Copilot plugin will ignore these files for AI assistance to avoid telemetry problem.

This same discussion is going on for IntelliJ as well, and possibly other AI solutions. I would like to plead with the powers that be that you all get on the same page and create a proper standard for this. Not specifically a .SOMEIDEAI-ignore file.

Can we please just create a
.ai-telemetry-ignore which will be cross IDE / Cross AI solution.

[asheroto]

That's a great idea.

[mattickx]

This is my way of implementing .copilotignore in VS Code while waiting for official support:
mattickx/copilotignore-vscode

[owzim]

@asheroto be aware that copilot still reads the content of inactive tabs/editors. The plugin, at it's current state only disables copilot for matching files if it is the currently active tab.

See the issue here: mattickx/copilotignore-vscode#4

[mattickx]

As discussed in mattickx/copilotignore-vscode#4
Open for contributions to the repo 👍
I'm still advocating for this feature to be added to the original Copilot extension

[asheroto]

@owzim ah shoot. I had not investigated that deeply. Glad you found that out. That means, at the moment, the plugin is not an effective measure of disabling Copilot.

[GabrielaMichelon]

Hi @mattickx, does this solution work also to disable GitHub Copilot Chat or only the autocompletion? Thank you for your time and support.

[mattickx]

@GabrielaMichelon It does not work for Copilot Chat. Neither does content exclusion from Github I think unfortunately.

[Glitch-Cloud-Code]

I would like to request a feature to be able to restrict the copilot chat feature from accessing certain files. Currently, in order to comply with my organization rules about perserving sensetive data we're required to remove it manually before using the chat functionality which causes alot of friction. Thanks!

[GabrielaMichelon]

I actually have the same problem, and I wonder why GitHub still did not provide such feature to exclude content from the GitHub Copilot Chat.

[laurentperez]

Reading https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/managing-github-copilot-in-your-organization/configuring-content-exclusions-for-github-copilot it seems to be supported only for GH repositories and Business plans

If my repository/workspace is not hosted on GH : it is a git clone of a Gitlab repo, it also may be a simple folder, with no source control versioning enabled : will the Copilot plugin, on VScode/vim/intelliJ honor the .copilotignore file ?

[laurentperez]

The .copilotignore file is currently not supported in the official Copilot extension.

I understand you added support in your own extension. This is an all nothing scenario but AFAIK inactive tabs are still scanned.

You're right to advocate for support in the original extension. But the code of the original extension is a closed source. Would you have a link pointing to a discussion about .copilotignore in the original extension ?

[mattickx]

@laurentperez This is the discussion on Github for official support you are writing on.
I'm not aware of another place for it.

[GabrielaMichelon]

Unfortunately, there is no solution yet to exclude content from GitHub Copilot Chat.
https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/116670

[laurentperez]

I understand inline completion and chatbot are different things. Indeed buffer based (vim) or tabs based (VScode/idea) solutions disabling the completion under the active buffer or tab are better than nothing.

Digging thru the official extensions settings for VScode or idea highlight that the flag enabling the extension is language based, ignores certain patterns by default (i.e : .md files). It is not file based.

The official extensions should honor the .copilotignore for both individual or business plans and for both inline completion and chatbot use cases, especially @workspace chatbot calls.

[laurentperez]

proxying the exchange between vscode and the copilot API, the copilotignore_enabled flag is returned in the token attributes(mine is false, I have an Individual Plan)

could someone with a Business Plan confirm their flag is being returned as true ?

see below

[RihardsT]

IMO, rather than going .copilotignore route, Copilot should allow option to explicitly enable it for repositories/folders.
I have files outside repositories that Copilot gets access to.
So there should rather be .copilot_settings or whatever in which it could be enabled for the repo and file inclusion/exclusion managed too.

Because now one needs to set up separate dev environment to workaround this failure of Copilot to ignore separate repositories, which is just super annoying.
There is just too much risk not being able to exclude files/folders.

[Konfekt]

If you happen to use (N)Vim, then you could put Copilot disable or let g:copilot_filetypes = { '*': v:false } into a .vimrc in the repo's root folder

[Konfekt]

Mind you that this effectively mutilates this running Vim instance as a whole, so Copilot is not available in files outside the repository you work on either.

[Konfekt]

So https://github.com/panozzaj/vim-copilot-ignore solves this much cleaner

[krystianpaszek]

Wanted to add my 2 cents. I know https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/managing-copilot/configuring-and-auditing-content-exclusion/excluding-content-from-github-copilot exists, but that is not enough. I want a clear way of saying to GitHub Copilot that this is the whitelist/blacklist of files you're allowed/not allowed to read. Not some web settings for GitHub repositories (what about other non-GitHub repos I have on my device?), and available for all Copilot users, not just enterprise.

[jakemayfield]

This, in addition to updating the terms so it applies to individual, paid subscribers that are not "...GitHub Copilot Business or GitHub Copilot Enterprise".