1. Get access to GitHub Copilot
There are a few ways that you can get access to GitHub Copilot:
- Set up GitHub Copilot Free. You can set up Copilot Free to get a limited experience of Copilot without a subscription. See About GitHub Copilot Free.
- Sign up for a subscription to GitHub Copilot Pro. You can try GitHub Copilot for free with a one-time 30-day trial. After the free trial, you will need a paid subscription for continued use.
- If you are a member of an organization or enterprise that has a subscription to GitHub Copilot, you can request access to Copilot by going to https://github.com/settings/copilot and requesting access under "Get Copilot from an organization."
- If you are a verified student, teacher, or maintainer of a popular open source project, GitHub Copilot is free to use. See Getting free access to Copilot Pro as a student, teacher, or maintainer.
2. Install the Copilot extension for your IDE
If you want to use Copilot in your IDE, install the Copilot extension for your IDE. See Installing the GitHub Copilot extension in your environment.
3. Install the Copilot extension for the command line
Note
This feature is not available in GitHub Copilot Free.
If you want to use Copilot in the command line, install the Copilot extension for the GitHub CLI. See Installing GitHub Copilot in the CLI.
4. Use Copilot in Windows Terminal
Note
This feature is not available in GitHub Copilot Free.
If you want to chat with Copilot in Windows Terminal, connect Copilot with Terminal Chat in Windows Terminal Canary. See Quickstart for GitHub Copilot.
5. Set up networking (if necessary)
If you connect through an HTTP proxy server or firewall, ensure that key URLs are added to the allowlist for the proxy server or firewall. See Configuring your proxy server or firewall for Copilot.
You may also need to install a custom SSL certificate on your machine. See Configuring network settings for GitHub Copilot.
6. Configure settings (optional)
All users can configure Copilot settings in their IDE or in the CLI. See Configuring GitHub Copilot in your environment and Configuring GitHub Copilot in the CLI.
If you have your own subscription to Copilot (instead of using your organization or enterprise's subscription), you can:
- Install Copilot Extensions to integrate other tools with Copilot Chat. See Extending the capabilities of GitHub Copilot in your personal account.
- Manage policies. See Managing Copilot policies as an individual subscriber.
7. Start using Copilot
Start using Copilot to help you write code faster and more efficiently. For all the ways you can use Copilot, see Using GitHub Copilot. Copilot code suggestions, Copilot Chat in GitHub, and Copilot Chat in your IDE are a great place to start.
To learn how to best use Copilot, see Best practices for using GitHub Copilot and Prompt engineering for GitHub Copilot.