Github Copilot in Windows Terminal

1 min read

PowerShell Tips

Intro

Github Copilot is an awesome tool, that I use in JetBrains Rider and VS Code and recently I found out, that Copilot can be used in CLI aswell. Let me show you how to set it up.

file

Installation

  1. Install github cli

This depends on what packaging software you use. For full list of choices follow this link https://github.com/cli/cli#windows. I’m gonna use chocolatey.

Shell
choco install gh
  1. Authenticate

Run following, to authenticate with your GitHub account.

Shell
gh auth login
  1. Install Copilot
Shell
gh extension install github/gh-copilot
  1. You are done

Now you can run

Shell
gh copilot suggest "list all movie files using powershell"

Bonus

Running previous suggest command is in my opinion not very convenient, because it’s long and you need to first choose what kind of command you are asking about.

file

To get around that, we can use -t argument and we can specify shell so the full command will look as follows

Shell
gh copilot suggest -t shell "list all movie files using powershell"

This gives you the anwser right away, but it’s still too long, so let’s fix that.

Open your powershell profile – type $PROFILE, hit ENTER and you will get the profile path, then open it in your prefered editor.

Alteratively, if you use VS Code, just type: code $PROFILE, this opens your powershell profile in VS Code right away.

Once you opened the powershell profile, paste in following code:

PowerShell
# Github Copilot CLI aliases

<#
.SYNOPSIS
# Runs Github Copilot CLI with shell template
#>
function ?? { 
    gh copilot suggest -t shell $args
}

<#
.SYNOPSIS
# Runs Github Copilot CLI with git template
#>
function git? { 
    gh copilot suggest -t git $args
}

<#
.SYNOPSIS
# Runs Github Copilot CLI with gh template
#>
function gh? { 
    gh copilot suggest -t gh $args
}

<#
.SYNOPSIS
# Runs Github Copilot CLI with powershell template
#>
function ps? { 
    gh copilot suggest -t shell ('Use powershell to ' + $args)
}

Save the profile, restart your terminal and voila, you can use ?? or ps? commands. For example ps? list all ps1 files gives you the anwser

PowerShell
Get-ChildItem -Path . -Filter "*.ps1" -Recurse -File

Enjoy 👍