After rolling out the beta version of GitHub Copilot Chat to all GitHub Copilot for Business users in July, the feature is now generally available.

The GitHub Copilot Chat feature in beta launched in July for GitHub Copilot for Business users. Now the feature is available to all GitHub Copilot users in Visual Studio and VS Code. The chatbot is included in the paid Copilot subscription. Educational accounts and open source developers can get started for free.

Copilot Chat is an extension of the Copilot feature introduced in 2021. Copilot started as an automated code completion feature and now adds a conversational interface. This means that in addition to writing and correcting lines of code, Copilot can also answer questions about your code files in words. Like ChatGPT, Copilot Chat is based on the GPT-4 LLM from OpenAI.

Work

Now all users can talk about coding with AI using the chat interface directly in the IDE. The AI ​​assistant supports developers in their preferred natural language.

Currently, GitHub Copilot Chat is available in both Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code editors. GitHub Copilot for Individual users now automatically have access to the chatbot if they have a subscription. For corporate accounts, the admin will still need to manually enable the setting unless already subscribed to the beta.

The possibilities

It is now possible for both individuals and teams to use GitHub Copilot Chat’s AI to:

• Learn new languages
• Bugs to fix
• Get to know new frameworks
• Ask programming questions in natural language

Through within the integrated development environment To proceed, the development process needs to be streamlined so that developers can maintain their focus.

GitHub Copilot Chat also allows users to suggest security patches. According to GitHub, this would improve the overall security of open source projects.

Other features and benefits GitHub highlights for Copilot Chat include:

• Live Help: AI can suggest coding tips and solutions in real-time
• Code analysis – this can also be done in smaller parts
• Security – AI can suggest adjustments and reduce the number of vulnerabilities
• Debugging – the AI ​​can identify problems and then make suggestions, give explanations and suggest alternatives

If the system turns a public post into a code suggestion, a tool is available to report this. Earlier this year, Microsoft integrated GitHub Copilot into its Terminal application.

This article was originally published on October 16, 2023. The text has been updated with the latest information about the availability of GitHub Copilot Chat.