GitHub Copilot Labs launches as a new VS Code extension

[irealva]

Greetings!

Latest update: The Copilot Labs technical preview was shut down on December 15th, 2023. Learn more about why we're sunsetting Copilot Labs.

Update: I'm no longer at GitHub, so please @ someone from the GitHub Next team.

We’re launching GiHub Copilot Labs, a VS Code extension for experimental applications of Copilot.

Where can I learn more? Read our full post about Labs.

What can Labs do? For now, two things.

1. Explain code

LabsExplain.mp4

2. Translate code

LabsTranslate.mp4

Who can use Labs? Those of you who are part of the technical preview for GitHub Copilot.

Where can I download labs? Right here.

Wasn’t this previously within the GiHub Copilot Nightly extension? Yes, but we’ve ported all of those features from Copilot Nightly to this new separate extension.

Please share feedback on GitHub Copilot Labs through this discussion forum. Labs experiments may or may not graduate into permanent features of GitHub Copilot, but with your help, they can inform future efforts.

— GitHub Next

[transcental]

Awesome, this looks like is a really useful feature! And from my quick tests, it works really well!

[Jorge1825]

Excelente herramienta, se les agradece desarrolladores. Esperamos seguir ayudándolos.

[fengyunzaidushi]

I've registered labs and copilot works, but it's the labs that don't work.
i get this error:
Error generating Copilot response, please try again. Changes in the prompt or stop sequence might fix this. If this error happens repeatedly check that you are logged into GitHub and have access to both Copilot and Copilot Labs.

[Jadamoureen]

I've registered labs and copilot works, but it's the labs that don't work.
i get this error:
Error generating Copilot response, please try again. Changes in the prompt or stop sequence might fix this. If this error happens repeatedly check that you are logged into GitHub and have access to both Copilot and Copilot Labs.

I am getting the same error how does one troubleshoot this error

[pratibhaHankare]

same error for me as well.Please help.

[Hoost11]

Same error here, have you found a solution?

[l-Luna]

Will this be made available in the IntelliJ (or other IDE) plugin?

[cansozbir]

Please, we need this great tool on Jetbrains' IDEs :(

[ScriptedAlchemy]

Copilot custom prompt:
Convert vs code extension to webstorm.
boom 💥

[skuhnow]

Any updates?

[albond]

It doesn't sound fair to IntelliJ users who also subscribed to Github copilot...

[ovidb]

IntelliJ user here. Unfortuatelly writting extensions for IntelliJ is not as easy as for VS Code. (Kotlin vs Javascript) I guess that's probably the reason - very sad there are no plans to support it.

[Zer0112]

Looks cool but any reason julia is not available as a language to translate to?

[irealva]

Thanks for reporting. Added support of Julia. The language support is not the best for Explain, but we'll be improving this feature soon.

[lazerlipa]

@irealva can you add support for salesforce apex too?

[Kamalesh3112]

This feature looks fantastic but Is it possible to explore GitHub co-pilot in GitHub itself or only in VS code ? @irealva

[chadhietala]

I'm trying this out right now but getting a pretty cryptic response.

[cxdmaye]

Same issue here, reloging and reInstall doesn't solve this

[StevePires]

Same issue...

[vaishnavigopinathAPTIV]

Same issue here

[MicroMilo]

same issue here

[blizzardzheng]

save issue, how to do

[blaylockbk]

The language translation will be useful as it helps me find the answer to "how do I do this python loop in shellscript" faster than a web search.

🌟 Would love to see translation for Fortran.

[Anselmoo]

The language translation will be useful as it helps me find the answer to "how do I do this python loop in shellscript" faster than a web search.

🌟 Would love to see translation for Fortran.

Or like https://github.com/gleitz/howdoi as shell script search

[irealva]

Added Fortran! Thanks for the feedback.

[lReymarkANM]

nice

[manuelabarca]

nice

[joshcawthorne]

Looks incredible! Unfortunately, I'm also running into the same issue that @chadhietala is seeing. I've tried restarting VSCode etc, and validated that Copilot itself is working. Is there any way for a user to re-authenticate copilot etc?

Edit: I'll add that the code I asked copilot to explain wouldn't actually work as value isn't passed in 😅, but even after I fixed that mistake, I ran into the same error.

[irealva]

Yeah there's some auth problem going on. Ok, last request: can you try uninstalling Labs entirely and re-installing please?

[joshcawthorne]

Ah, that's solved it! For what it's worth, once I reinstalled it, VSCode prompted me to sign in with Github in the bottom right, and re-ran me through the auth process, before asking me to accept the T&Cs again. I'm pretty sure that prompt wasn't there originally, but I can't be certain. Seems to be working like a charm now though, thanks @irealva, and great work with it, it's really exciting... until it puts me out of a job 😀

[MohamedElashri]

I have the same problem and tried to uninstall and re-install but the problem is the same.

[mattetti]

I had the same issue, restarted VSCode , re-signed in (for labs this time), then authorized telemetry and the problem was solved. It might be worth exposing a different error message when authentication fails.

[irealva]

Thanks for the input @mattetti! And yep, agreed.

[TheOtterlord]

This is a really cool feature and after a few simple tests it seems to be pretty accurate. Can't wait to see how this evolves :D

[davidawad]

This is awesome, question, any plans on solidity support? everything I've tried on the web3 side hasn't quite worked right.

[irealva]

I wouldn't expect to get great results from web3-related code. But noted that you are interested in solidity.

[irealva]

Added solidity!

[yamraz]

Wow broi ❤️❤️

[SirMishaa]

Nice one !

Does anyone know if / when it will come on JetBrains IDE ?
Like a new plugin or update of current Copilot plugin maybe ?

[irealva]

Sorry, we don't have plans to port or create a version of Labs for JetBrains IDE at this moment.

[MCKevmeister]

why?

[stitchless]

Feature suggestion:
I was translating a GoLang struct to Python class, however I ran into an issue when it came to the GoLang structs annotations. Using the annotations it created a python struct that was accurate but not at all what my target was, so instead I decided to do a multi line select in order to only select the struct and not the annotations. Copilot Labs did not understand that and took it as only selecting the first line. It would be nice if this would understand multi line selection.

[irealva]

Good idea, thanks for suggesting.

[IgniteWebDeveloper]

Please update the ctrl + enter shortcut for copilot because it's a default shortcut to move the cursor to next line in Visual Studio Code from between the line.

[irealva]

Hi there @IgniteWebDeveloper, ctrl + enter opens the Copilot sidebar that synthesizes solutions correct? If so, please try posting feedback in one of the general discussions or other forums on the main Copilot extension. I believe the Labs extension has no such keybindings.

In any case, you can override keyboard shortcuts in the main extension by going to something like Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts

[PeteZ238]

So far I've tested with python, markdown and LaTeX, though Python not as extensively as I'd like yet because of the work I need to be finishing over the weekend. First impressions are, it works beautifully. With code I was expecting it. But not with markdown. Currently writing notes on Robot Localisation and the suggestions are spot on (inc LaTeX and explanation of math formulae). Same with what images I want to embed and image captions. Mind blown 🤯

[irealva]

Awesome! Glad it's working for you :)

[Urethramancer]

I'm still looking for Go code it explains correctly in my projects. Pressing those feedback buttons like crazy :)

[MarkB2]

Hi, I've tried to install Copilot into fresh local VS Code. It works perfect. My problem is I mainly work with code-server through web interface. I was trying to install it into openvscode-server-v1.66.0 and in code-server-v1.62.0. There is no Copilot extension in both of them. What I'm doing wrong?

[irealva]

Hi @MarkB2, sadly the extension is not available for the web yet! Take a look at this post here.

[MarkB2]

Thanks

[mgscox]

Just got into the Beta, and installed the VSCode extension into existing projects. Parsed existing code, and working without major issue (webdev; JS, .TS, SCSS, HTML, etc). Suggestions are generally on the mark - or close enough that it's generally quicker to accept and edit.

The only minor issue I have is that I can't seem to cancel a suggestion - which is particularly annoying if all I want to do is tab over and start typing, as that commits the suggestion, and cursoring-off the line defeats what I'm trying to do. It's probably buried in the user docs, but I haven't found it.

[JoshJarabek7]

Escape key exits the suggestion and then you can hit tab.

[mtowery]

I am signed up for Copilot and have accepted the licence but the install button does not work on https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=GitHub.copilot-labs. I also not find Gethub Copilot Lab when I search for extensions when I search within Visual studio.

[mtowery]

How do I install the GitHub.copilot-labs-0.12.791.vsix manually? It does not show up in extensions when I search from withing Visual Studio but I can download from the Github page.

[newresu]

No need to express your intentions to Copilot using a comment or an overly descriptive function name, just press Cmd+I and describe what you want to do. Stay in the zone while Copilot does the work.

This is from your release blogpost but doesnt work, was it disabled or deprecated ?

[snowyegret23]

Error generating Copilot response, please try again. Changes in the prompt or stop sequence might fix this. If this error happens repeatedly check that you are logged into GitHub and have access to both Copilot and Copilot Labs.

What is the maximum number of lines supported by Copilot LABS?
Even if the code is a little long, an error pops up.

TESTCODE:

int ** __thiscall FUN_00418010(void *this,int **param_1,void **param_2)

{
  uint uVar1;
  code *pcVar2;
  int **ppiVar3;
  void *pvVar4;
  
  if (param_1 != (int **)0x0) {
    uVar1 = *(uint *)((int)this + 0x14);
    ppiVar3 = (int **)this;
    if (0xf < uVar1) {
      ppiVar3 = *this;
    }
    if (ppiVar3 <= param_1) {
      pvVar4 = this;
      if (0xf < uVar1) {
        pvVar4 = *this;
      }
      if (param_1 < (int **)(*(int *)((int)this + 0x10) + (int)pvVar4)) {
        if (0xf < uVar1) {
          ppiVar3 = FUN_00417d80(this,(int **)this,(int *)((int)param_1 - *this),param_2);
          return ppiVar3;
        }
        ppiVar3 = FUN_00417d80(this,(int **)this,(int *)((int)param_1 - (int)this),param_2);
        return ppiVar3;
      }
    }
  }
  if (param_2 == (void **)0xffffffff) {
    FUN_0065d5ea("string too long");
    pcVar2 = (code *)swi(3);
    ppiVar3 = (int **)(*pcVar2)();
    return ppiVar3;
  }
  if (*(void ***)((int)this + 0x14) < param_2) {
    FUN_00418410(this,param_2,*(void **)((int)this + 0x10));
    if (param_2 == (void **)0x0) {
      return (int **)this;
    }
  }
  else if (param_2 == (void **)0x0) {
    *(undefined4 *)((int)this + 0x10) = 0;
    if (&DAT_00000010 <= *(void ***)((int)this + 0x14)) {
      **this = 0;
      return (int **)this;
    }
    *(undefined *)this = 0;
    return (int **)this;
  }
  pvVar4 = this;
  if (0xf < *(uint *)((int)this + 0x14)) {
    pvVar4 = *this;
  }
  if (param_2 != (void **)0x0) {
    memcpy(pvVar4,param_1,(size_t)param_2);
  }
  *(void ***)((int)this + 0x10) = param_2;
  if (*(uint *)((int)this + 0x14) < 0x10) {
    *(undefined *)((int)this + (int)param_2) = 0;
    return (int **)this;
  }
  *(undefined *)(*this + (int)param_2) = 0;
  return (int **)this;
}

[HodeiG]

Yesterday I installed the Visual Studio Code plugins for Github Copilot and Github Copilot Labs. The former plugin works ok but the latter plugin doesn't work and gives this error: unable to get local issuer certificate

I started vscode and attached strace to it to see if I could figure out what call was failing:

I could see that there is a call to 140.82.114.5 before the error and I opened the address in a browser. I can see that because my organization uses Zscaler, I am having troubles to connect to that address:

As I believe that VSC uses Electron, is there a global variable or something else that I could modify to bypass this issue? I tried exporting the below global variable before starting VSC, but it didn't work:

export NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED=0

[HodeiG]

I can see that IP can be resolved to lb-140-82-114-5-iad.github.com and if I open that link directly, I don't see any issues. So, I am not 100% sure if this is the issue... I guess it depends whether the IP is used to fetch the address or the hostname...

[hsenag]

Hi, unfortunately Copilot Labs doesn't support proxies like ZScaler. I don't know exactly how to explain the messages you are seeing but most likely something in your network is doing SSL interception and issuing a different certificate for github.com, or somehow otherwise rerouting the HTTPS connection so it becomes invalid.

[HodeiG]

Is the Copilot Labs plugin source code available so I could potentially debug the issue? What puzzles me is that the Github Copilot plugin does work but the Github Copilot Labs plugin doesn't...

Also, could this be an issue on the server side? For instance if I ping api.github.com I get the IP 140.82.113.5. Now if I open this IP in the browser (outside my organization), I still get the certification error.

However, if I ping www.google.com, I get this IP 142.250.138.103. When I open that IP on the browser it directly redirects me to www.google.com. Shouldn't 140.82.113.5 be redirecting to api.github.com?

[hsenag]

Sorry, the source code isn't available (not because it's really any great secret - but it would be a distraction for us to make it available).

The GitHub Copilot plugin has had a lot of work done on it to make proxies work which hasn't been ported to Copilot Labs.

For the networking bits you've observed, I suspect Google have just setup a redirect on the IP. In general the hostname you actually visited is part of the SSL validation. But I'm not an expert on this.

[HodeiG]

@hsenag thank you for all the feedback!

[MCKevmeister]

There has been many users ask and be shut down with a generic answer for not supporting Intellij, but no actual explanation as to why? Why are some of the features of GitHub copilot locked to vs code?

[hsenag]

Copilot Labs is an experimental extension developed by a small number of developers in GitHub Next just to help figure out if some potential new features are useful or not. It's a lot of extra development work to port the features to multiple editors, which the team doesn't have capacity for.

[MCKevmeister]

A emerging technology with 1000's of paying customers provided by one of the largest tech firms in the world doesn't have the capacity? I'm sorry, but this is exceptionally difficult if not impossible to believe.

I can't test your features since Visual Studio Code doesn't provide the features of an IDE, as its a text editor. In order to test and provide feedback I need to be able to incorporate the tool into my existing workflow which is in Webstorm/Rider. Please consider that not everyone wants to use Visual Studio Code Github Copilot but rather Copilot and its features, independent of IDE/text editor.

PLEASE:

Communicate that these features will be available once out of testing or not.
Rebrand the product as the Exclusive product that currently it is if these features are not going to be released to other IDE's
Offer a different price point with the reduce feature set to those heathen users who don't want to use the savior of code Visual Studio Code for Github by Copilot Microsoft / whatever name it is.

GRR frustrated 😠

[blizzardzheng]

so how to solve this? the github copilot worked,but lab not work. i had tried relogin and had signed up the project.

[luochenwu]

我也不行 你有修复好吗

[thephoeron]

Please add support for Common Lisp

Copilot Chat includes support for Common Lisp, and I'm training it where it falls short. But the Copilot Labs extension doesn't expose very much of this support, and what it does expose doesn't match the responses from Copilot Chat directly.

• the Explain panel offers an explanation for highlighted blocks of Lisp source-code, but glitches out partway through, repeating itself 10 times
• the Language Translation panel doesn't include Lisp as an option
• the Test Generation panel clearly states it only supports JavaScript and TypeScript, but Copilot Chat is capable of generating tests for Common Lisp, it just occasionally confuses the syntax of different test libraries
• the predefined brushes of the Brushes panel don't seem to do anything for highlighted Lisp code, the interface just shows the processing icon in the gutter and nothing seems to happen when it completes; but checking the output log, it says the selected block of code is "not a substring of joinedTokens:[]", so the brushes don't seem to be using the tokenizer for the Lisp extension (in my case, Alive which is built on the LSP)

Thanks!

[hsenag]

Hi, the Labs extension is very much an experimental proving ground for features that might make it into future products. In this case if Copilot Chat is working better for you I'd suggest using that instead.

[Dustin-Digitar]

Feature requests:

• ability to save custom brush prompts
  Sometimes you come up with a useful prompt that you want to reused often. To reuse the prompt now, you have to retype/paste the prompt text each time.

• ability to see multiline text for custom brush promp input

• hotkey to apply a certain brush instantly (including saved custom brushes, as mentioned above)

[LePenidon]

Greetings!

Update: I'm no longer at GitHub, so please @ someone from the GitHub Next team.

We’re launching GiHub Copilot Labs, a VS Code extension for experimental applications of Copilot.

Where can I learn more? Read our full post about Labs.

What can Labs do? For now, two things.

1. Explain code

LabsExplain.mp4
2. Translate code

LabsTranslate.mp4
Who can use Labs? Those of you who are part of the technical preview for GitHub Copilot.

Where can I download labs? Right here.

Wasn’t this previously within the GiHub Copilot Nightly extension? Yes, but we’ve ported all of those features from Copilot Nightly to this new separate extension.

Please share feedback on GitHub Copilot Labs through this discussion forum. Labs experiments may or may not graduate into permanent features of GitHub Copilot, but with your help, they can inform future efforts.

— GitHub Next

Greetings!

Update: I'm no longer at GitHub, so please @ someone from the GitHub Next team.

We’re launching GiHub Copilot Labs, a VS Code extension for experimental applications of Copilot.

Where can I learn more? Read our full post about Labs.

What can Labs do? For now, two things.

1. Explain code

LabsExplain.mp4
2. Translate code

LabsTranslate.mp4
Who can use Labs? Those of you who are part of the technical preview for GitHub Copilot.

Where can I download labs? Right here.

Wasn’t this previously within the GiHub Copilot Nightly extension? Yes, but we’ve ported all of those features from Copilot Nightly to this new separate extension.

Please share feedback on GitHub Copilot Labs through this discussion forum. Labs experiments may or may not graduate into permanent features of GitHub Copilot, but with your help, they can inform future efforts.

— GitHub Next

It has proven to be an exceptional coding assistant. Its advanced AI capabilities, seamless integration, broad language support, and continuous learning make it an invaluable tool for developers. As a user, I am thoroughly impressed with Copilot's performance, and it has become an integral part of my coding workflow. I eagerly anticipate further advancements in this remarkable software and would highly recommend it to fellow developers.

[joreyaesh]

Would it be possible to have the extension connect to your servers with a FQDN instead of an IP address? The company I work for doesn't allow IP addresses to be explicitly allowed through the firewall, and I'm not able to use the labs plugin due to the following error:

GitHub Copilot Labs could not connect to server. Extension activation failed: "connect ECONNREFUSED 140.82.114.5:443"

[joreyaesh]

@hsenag

[hsenag]

I think it is connecting with a FQDN. But it doesn't support proxies at all, I'm afraid.

Most of the functionality currently in Labs is also in Copilot Chat so I'd recommend trying that out instead.

[joreyaesh]

Could you let me know what the FQDN is so that I can request it be un-blocked on my end? I have been using chat (which has been great), but would love to be able to avoid copying and pasting between the editor and the extension.

[hsenag]

Should be roughly the ones on this list plus next-waitlist.azurewebsites.net

[Ganeshan-others]

@irealva Currently, test generation is only able to generate test cases for TS/JS functions. When can we expect support for async functions as well?

const myAsynFunction = async (url: string): Promise => {
const { data } = await fetch(url)
return data
}

[irealva]

Hey there, I left GitHub over a year ago so can't help you personally. Please @ someone else on the team like [hsenag](https://github.com/hsenag)

[hsenag]

Hi, we don't have any current plans to extend the test generation in Labs.

In addition, most of the functionality currently in Labs is also in Copilot Chat so I'd recommend trying that out instead.

[AndreuSCK]

Hi, I uninstalled Copilot Labs thinking that these translation/explain the code features were merged into normal copilot but nope, any idea how I could get the vs code lab back?

[hsenag]

You should be able to get code explanations and translation via Copilot Chat if you explicitly ask for that in your chat message. The Labs extension has been removed and the endpoints it connects to will also stop working soon, so I'm afraid you can't really get it back.

[yegor211]

Why was it removed?

[hsenag]

There's some explanation here.

[Drygord]

Why on God's green earth was this removed? The one actual way to get practical use out of Copilot other than saving a few seconds typing out print statements...

[Zack4DEV]

With Multi requests (explain ,translate and test) .By Github Copilot Lab on @GithubNext seems to be a code handle facility