Copilot.el

Copilot.el is an Emacs plugin for GitHub Copilot.

Warning: This plugin is unofficial and based on binaries provided by copilot.vim.

Note: You need access to GitHub Copilot to use this plugin.

Installation

0. Ensure your Emacs version is at least 27.

1. Install Node.js.

2. Setup copilot.el as described in the next section.

3. Login to Copilot by M-x copilot-login. You can also check the status by M-x copilot-diagnose.

4. Enjoy!

Configurations

Example for Doom Emacs

Details

Add package definition to ~/.doom.d/packages.el:

(package! copilot
  :recipe (:host github :repo "zerolfx/copilot.el" :files ("*.el" "dist")))

Configure copilot in ~/.doom.d/config.el:

;; accept completion from copilot and fallback to company
(use-package! copilot
  :hook (prog-mode . copilot-mode)
  :bind (:map copilot-completion-map
              ("<tab>" . 'copilot-accept-completion)
              ("TAB" . 'copilot-accept-completion)
              ("C-TAB" . 'copilot-accept-completion-by-word)
              ("C-<tab>" . 'copilot-accept-completion-by-word)))

Strongly recommend to enable childframe option in company module ((company +childframe)) to prevent overlay conflict.

Example for Spacemacs

Details

Edit your ~/.spacemacs:

;; ===================
;; dotspacemacs/layers
;; ===================

;; add or uncomment the auto-completion layer
dotspacemacs-configuration-layers
'(
  ...
  auto-completion
  ...
 )

;; add copilot.el to additional packages
dotspacemacs-additional-packages
 '((copilot :location (recipe
                       :fetcher github
                       :repo "zerolfx/copilot.el"
                       :files ("*.el" "dist"))))

;; ========================
;; dotspacemacs/user-config
;; ========================

;; accept completion from copilot and fallback to company

(with-eval-after-load 'company
  ;; disable inline previews
  (delq 'company-preview-if-just-one-frontend company-frontends))
  
(with-eval-after-load 'copilot
  (define-key copilot-completion-map (kbd "<tab>") 'copilot-accept-completion)
  (define-key copilot-completion-map (kbd "TAB") 'copilot-accept-completion))

(add-hook 'prog-mode-hook 'copilot-mode)

(define-key evil-insert-state-map (kbd "C-<tab>") 'copilot-accept-completion-by-word)
(define-key evil-insert-state-map (kbd "C-TAB") 'copilot-accept-completion-by-word)

General Configurations

Details

1. Load copilot.el

Option 1: Load via straight.el or quelpa (recommended)

straight.el:

(use-package copilot
  :straight (:host github :repo "zerolfx/copilot.el" :files ("dist" "*.el"))
  :ensure t)
;; you can utilize :map :hook and :config to customize copilot

quelpa + quelpa-use-package:

(use-package copilot
  :quelpa (copilot :fetcher github
                   :repo "zerolfx/copilot.el"
                   :branch "main"
                   :files ("dist" "*.el")))
;; you can utilize :map :hook and :config to customize copilot

Option 2: Load manually

Please make sure you have these dependencies installed.

• dash
• s
• editorconfig

After installing those, clone this repository then insert the below snippet into your config file.

(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/copilot.el")
(require 'copilot)

2. Configure completion

Option 1: Use copilot-mode to automatically provide completions

(add-hook 'prog-mode-hook 'copilot-mode)

To customize the behavior of copilot-mode, please check copilot-enable-predicates and copilot-disable-predicates.

Option 2: Manually provide completions

You need to bind copilot-complete to some key and call copilot-clear-overlay inside post-command-hook.

3. Configure completion acceptation

In general, you need to bind copilot-accept-completion to some key in order to accept the completion. Also, you may find copilot-accept-completion-by-word is useful.

Example of using tab with company-mode

(with-eval-after-load 'company
  ;; disable inline previews
  (delq 'company-preview-if-just-one-frontend company-frontends))
  
(define-key copilot-completion-map (kbd "<tab>") 'copilot-accept-completion)
(define-key copilot-completion-map (kbd "TAB") 'copilot-accept-completion)

Example of using tab with auto-complete

; complete by copilot first, then auto-complete
(defun my-tab ()
  (interactive)
  (or (copilot-accept-completion)
      (ac-expand nil)))

(with-eval-after-load 'auto-complete
  ; disable inline preview
  (setq ac-disable-inline t)
  ; show menu if have only one candidate
  (setq ac-candidate-menu-min 0))
  
(define-key copilot-completion-map (kbd "<tab>") 'copilot-accept-completion)
(define-key copilot-completion-map (kbd "TAB") 'copilot-accept-completion)

Example of defining tab in copilot-mode

This is useful if you don't want to depend on a particular completion framework.

(defun my/copilot-tab ()
  (interactive)
  (or (copilot-accept-completion)
      (indent-for-tab-command)))

(with-eval-after-load 'copilot
  (define-key copilot-mode-map (kbd "<tab>") #'my/copilot-tab))

Or with evil-mode:

(with-eval-after-load 'copilot
  (evil-define-key 'insert copilot-mode-map
    (kbd "<tab>") #'my/copilot-tab))

Commands

copilot-diagnose

Check the current status of the plugin. Also you can check logs in the *copilot events* buffer and stderr output in the *copilot stderr* buffer.

copilot-login

Login to GitHub, required for using the plugin.

copilot-mode

Enable/disable copilot mode.

copilot-complete

Try to complete at the current point.

copilot-accept-completion

Accept the current completion.

copilot-clear-overlay

Clear copilot overlay in the current buffer.

copilot-accept-completion-by-line / copilot-accept-completion-by-word

Similar to copilot-accept-completion, but accept the completion by line or word. You can use prefix argument to specify the number of lines or words to accept.

copilot-next-completion / copilot-previous-completion

Cycle through the completion list.

copilot-logout

Logout from GitHub.

Customization

copilot-node-executable

The executable path of Node.js.

copilot-idle-delay

Time in seconds to wait before starting completion (default to 0). Note Copilot itself has a ~100ms delay because of network communication.

copilot-enable-predicates / copilot-disable-predicates

A list of predicate functions with no argument to enable/disable triggering Copilot in copilot-mode.

copilot-enable-display-predicates / copilot-disable-display-predicates

A list of predicate functions with no argument to enable/disable showing Copilot's completions in copilot-mode.

copilot-clear-overlay-ignore-commands

A list of commands that won't cause the overlay to be cleared.

copilot-network-proxy

Format: '(:host "127.0.0.1" :port "7890" :username: "user" :password: "password"), where :username and :password are optional.

Known Issues

Wrong Position of Other Completion Popups

This is an example of using together with default frontend of company-mode. Because both company-mode and copilot.el use overlay to show completion, so the conflict is inevitable. To solve the problem, I recommend you to use company-box (only available on GUI), which is based on child frame rather than overlay.

After using company-box, you have:

In other editors (e.g. VS Code, PyCharm), completions from copilot and other sources can not show at the same time. But I decided to allow them to coexist, allowing you to choose a better one at any time.

Cursor Jump to End of Line When Typing

• If you are using whitespace-mode, make sure to remove newline-mark from whitespace-style.

Reporting Bugs

• Make sure you have restarted your Emacs (and rebuild the plugin if necessary) after updating the plugin.
• Please paste related logs in the *copilot events* and *copilot stderr* buffer.
• If an exception is thrown, please also paste the stack trace (use M-x toggle-debug-on-error to enable stack trace).

Roadmap

• Setup Copilot without Neovim
• Cycle through suggestions
• Add Copilot minor-mode
• Add package to MELPA

Thanks

These projects helped me a lot:

• https://github.com/TommyX12/company-tabnine/
• https://github.com/cryptobadger/flight-attendant.el
• https://github.com/github/copilot.vim