What is GitHub Copilot? - GitHub Docs (original) (raw)

Learn what GitHub Copilot is and what you can do with it.

GitHub Copilot is an AI coding assistant that helps you write code faster and with less effort, allowing you to focus more energy on problem solving and collaboration.

GitHub Copilot has been proven to increase developer productivity and accelerate the pace of software development. See Research: quantifying GitHub Copilot’s impact on developer productivity and happiness in the GitHub blog.

Copilot features

GitHub Copilot includes a suite of features. You can use Copilot to:

Get code suggestions as you type in your IDE
Chat with Copilot to ask for help with your code
Ask Copilot for help using the command line
Generate a description of the changes in a pull request (Copilot Enterprise only)
Create and manage collections of documentation, called knowledge bases, to use as a context for chatting with Copilot (Copilot Enterprise only)

Copilot is available:

In your IDE
In GitHub Mobile, as a chat interface
In Windows Terminal Canary, through the Terminal Chat interface
On the command line, through the GitHub CLI
On the GitHub website

See GitHub Copilot features.

Getting access to Copilot

There are a few ways you can start using Copilot, depending on your role and needs.

For individuals

Try Copilot for free: Use Copilot Free to explore core Copilot features with no paid plan required.
Subscribe to a paid plan: Upgrade to Copilot Pro or Copilot Pro+ for full access to premium features and more generous usage limits. You can try Copilot Pro for free with a one-time 30-day trial.
Eligible for free Copilot Pro access? Students, teachers, and open source maintainers may qualify for Copilot Pro at no cost. See Getting free access to Copilot Pro as a student, teacher, or maintainer.
Organization members: If your organization or enterprise has a GitHub Copilot plan, you can request access to Copilot by going to https://github.com/settings/copilot and requesting access under "Get Copilot from an organization."

See Getting started with a Copilot plan for more information.

For organizations and enterprises

Organization owners: Purchase Copilot Business for your team. See Subscribing to Copilot for your organization. If your organization is owned by an enterprise that has a Copilot subscription, you can ask your enterprise owner to enable Copilot for your organization by going to https://github.com/settings/copilot and requesting access under "Get Copilot from an organization."
Enterprise owners: Purchase Copilot Business or Copilot Enterprise for your enterprise. See Subscribing to Copilot for your enterprise.

If you don't need other GitHub features, you can request an enterprise account specifically for managing Copilot Business licenses. These accounts don't include repository or organization creation and don’t incur GitHub Enterprise seat charges. See About enterprise accounts for Copilot Business.

Next steps