Copilot

Copilot CLI

1. Install GitHub CLI

Choose the command for your operating system:

macOS:

brew install gh

Windows (Winget):

winget install GitHub.cli

Windows (Scoop):

scoop install gh

Linux (Ubuntu/Debian):

sudo apt install gh

Linux (Fedora/RHEL):

sudo dnf install gh

---

2. Authenticate:

gh auth login

---

3. Install the Copilot Extension:

gh extension install github/gh-copilot

---

4. Update the Extension (Optional)

gh extension upgrade gh-copilot

---

5. Use the CLI

gh copilot explain "command"

gh copilot suggest "what you want to do"

If you want, I can help you set up aliases (like ?? or git?) to make triggering Copilot suggestions much faster in your shell. Let me know if you use Bash, Zsh, or PowerShell.

---

References

• https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/how-tos/copilot-cli/set-up-copilot-cli/install-copilot-cli
• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/github_have-you-tried-github-copilot-in-the-cli-activity-7179897577172074496-jw4T
• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/juliangoldieseo_new-github-copilot-cli-is-insane-activity-7377931244484964352-mr2Y
• https://itnext.io/getting-started-with-github-copilot-66fb63c88cbe
• https://apito.ai/en/blog/tools/github-copilot-claudeapi-byok-setup/
• https://www.promptfu.com/blog/github-copilot-cli-mastery-guide/

Set Model

Set Model:

/config model claude-opus-5

Common options:

• claude-opus-5
• claude-sonnet-4.5
• claude-haiku-4.5

Set effort level: ("Reasoning effort for models that support it")

/config effortLevel xhigh
  options: none, minimal, low, medium, high, xhigh, max

Calude Opus 5 supports effort levels, but Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Claude Haiku 4.5 do not

Multi-Line

Use: Ctrl+g to bring up vim

Or alt+enter

Note: shift+enter does not work

ask_user tool

I'll note to use the ask_user tool for open-ended questions going forward...

"Can you save to my profile, or user setting to *always* use the 'ask_user tool' when you ask me a question, and to always provide a "open ended" option please

• "Good — I'll wire that in as a standing rule. Let me check where user-level (not repo-level) preferences belong for this CLI. "
• $HOME/.copilot/copilot-instructions.md  is the user-level (all-repos) instructions file — it doesn't exist yet, so I'll create it.

profile copilot-instructions.md

$HOME/.copilot/copilot-instructions.md