Github Copilot CLI

GitHub Copilot CLI is a powerful tool designed to enhance your coding experience by reading, writing, and running code directly in your terminal. It is included with GitHub Copilot Pro, Pro+, Business, and Enterprise subscriptions, making setup simple and costs predictable. The tool is agent-powered and GitHub-native, allowing you to execute coding tasks with an agent that understands your repositories, issues, and pull requests, all within your terminal. It inherits your policies and enforces explicit approvals, ensuring you stay in control with full transparency. Copilot CLI can explore project structures, install dependencies, and explain how everything works through simple conversations in your terminal. It also brings context from your issues and pull requests directly to your environment, eliminating context switching. You can extend its capabilities and context through custom MCP servers. Additionally, Copilot CLI can edit files, run commands, and help you iterate quickly without leaving your local environment. Setting up Copilot CLI is straightforward. You can install it via npm with the commandnpm install -g @github/copilotand then authenticate using your existing GitHub credentials. The CLI automatically inherits your organization's Copilot policies and governance settings. Copilot CLI is available to all developers with an active GitHub Copilot paid subscription, including Individual, Business, and Enterprise plans. It supports macOS, Linux, and Windows (via WSL). The tool operates independently in your terminal and can modify files that any editor can then display, making it useful regardless of your editor choice, especially for editors that don't have official Copilot extensions. You can extend Copilot CLI with custom tools by supporting Model Context Protocol (MCP) server integrations, allowing you to add custom capabilities and contextual richness tailored to your unique development environment. Copilot CLI excels at legacy codebase navigation, cross-platform development setup, and multi-step implementations, and any scenario requiring autonomous task execution with terminal-native workflows. It maintains session persistence within and across sessions, allowing you to build on previous conversations and maintain context throughout your development workflow. Direct integration into VS Code is not available in the current Public Preview release, but it is being considered for future releases. Copilot CLI automatically inherits your organization's existing Copilot governance policies and is built on GitHub's trusted platform infrastructure with the same security standards and compliance that protect millions of developers. Every file change and command execution requires your explicit approval before being applied, ensuring you maintain complete visibility and control over all autonomous actions.