GitHub Copilot CLI (Public Preview)

The power of GitHub Copilot, now in your terminal.

GitHub Copilot CLI brings AI-powered coding assistance directly to your command line, enabling you to build, debug, and understand code through natural language conversations. Powered by the same agentic harness as GitHub's Copilot coding agent, it provides intelligent assistance while staying deeply integrated with your GitHub workflow.

See our official documentation for more information.

🚀 Introduction and Overview

We're bringing the power of GitHub Copilot coding agent directly to your terminal. With GitHub Copilot CLI, you can work locally and synchronously with an AI agent that understands your code and GitHub context.

• Terminal-native development: Work with Copilot coding agent directly in your command line — no context switching required.
• GitHub integration out of the box: Access your repositories, issues, and pull requests using natural language, all authenticated with your existing GitHub account.
• Agentic capabilities: Build, edit, debug, and refactor code with an AI collaborator that can plan and execute complex tasks.
• MCP-powered extensibility: Take advantage of the fact that the coding agent ships with GitHub's MCP server by default and supports custom MCP servers to extend capabilities.
• Full control: Preview every action before execution — nothing happens without your explicit approval.

We're still early in our journey, but with your feedback, we're rapidly iterating to make the GitHub Copilot CLI the best possible companion in your terminal.

📦 Getting Started

Supported Platforms

• Linux
• macOS
• Windows

Prerequisites

• Node.js v22 or higher
• npm v10 or higher
• (On Windows) PowerShell v6 or higher
• An active Copilot subscription. See Copilot plans.

If you have access to GitHub Copilot via your organization of enterprise, you cannot use GitHub Copilot CLI if your organization owner or enterprise administrator has disabled it in the organization or enterprise settings. See Managing policies and features for GitHub Copilot in your organization for more information.

Installation

Install globally with npm:

npm install -g @github/copilot

Launching the CLI

copilot

On first launch, you'll be greeted with our adorable animated banner! If you'd like to see this banner again, launch copilot with the --banner flag.

If you're not currently logged in to GitHub, you'll be prompted to use the /login slash command. Enter this command and follow the on-screen instructions to authenticate.

Authenticate with a Personal Access Token (PAT)

You can also authenticate using a fine-grained PAT with the "Copilot Requests" permission enabled.

1. Visit https://github.com/settings/personal-access-tokens/new
2. Under "Permissions," click "add permissions" and select "Copilot Requests"
3. Generate your token
4. Add the token to your environment via the environment variable GH_TOKEN or GITHUB_TOKEN (in order of precedence)

Using the CLI

Launch copilot in a folder that contains code you want to work with.

By default, copilot utilizes Claude Sonnet 4.5. Run the /model slash command to choose from other available models, including Claude Sonnet 4 and GPT-5

Each time you submit a prompt to GitHub Copilot CLI, your monthly quota of premium requests is reduced by one. For information about premium requests, see About premium requests.

For more information about how to use the GitHub Copilot CLI, see our official documentation.

🤖 Auto-Approval Wrapper (New!)

We've added a powerful wrapper that allows continuous auto-prompting without manual approvals. Perfect for autonomous tasks!

Quick Start

# Install the wrapper globally
npm install -g .

# Run with auto-approval
copilot-auto "Create a REST API with tests"

# With safety limits
copilot-auto --max-iterations 100 --deny-tool "shell(git push)" "Refactor the codebase"

Key Features

• ✅ Fully autonomous: No approval prompts
• ✅ Safety limits: Max iterations and duration controls
• ✅ Tool filtering: Deny dangerous operations
• ✅ Configurable: JSON config or CLI arguments
• ✅ Session management: Continue and resume previous sessions (opt-in)

Session Continuation

Resume your work across sessions with repo-scoped safety:

# Continue your most recent session
copilot-auto --continue "Add more tests"

# Resume a specific session
copilot-auto --resume "Complete the feature"

See AUTO-WRAPPER-README.md for complete documentation.

Local Tool Synthesis (Experimental, Opt-in)

⚠️ Disabled by default - Requires explicit activation

The wrapper supports local tool synthesis for creating custom tools on-demand without external dependencies:

# Enable local tool synthesis with MCP prevention
copilot-auto --enable-local-tool-synthesis --no-mcp "Build custom tooling"

# Or use environment variables
export COPILOT_LOCAL_TOOL_SYNTHESIS=1
export COPILOT_NO_MCP=1
copilot-auto "Create specialized tools"

Key Points:

• ❌ Never uses MCP servers when --no-mcp flag is set
• 📦 Creates tool scaffolds locally in tools/ directory
• 🔒 Opt-in only - No behavior change unless explicitly enabled
• 🛡️ Safe by default - Scaffolds fail with clear implementation instructions

See docs/local-tool-synthesis-policy.md for full documentation.

📢 Feedback and Participation

We're excited to have you join us early in the Copilot CLI journey.

This is an early-stage preview, and we're building quickly. Expect frequent updates--please keep your client up to date for the latest features and fixes!

Your insights are invaluable! Open issue in this repo, join Discussions, and run /feedback from the CLI to submit a confidential feedback survey!