Complete Guide to GitHub Copilot 2026: Setup, Features, and Best Practices

What Is GitHub Copilot?

GitHub Copilot is an AI-powered coding assistant developed by GitHub and OpenAI, integrated directly into popular code editors. With over 1.8 million paying subscribers in 2026, Copilot has become the most widely adopted AI coding tool. It provides real-time code suggestions, chat-based assistance, and increasingly autonomous coding capabilities through its Agent mode.

Copilot understands your code context, project structure, and coding patterns to provide relevant suggestions. It works across virtually every programming language and framework, with particularly strong support for Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Java, Go, Ruby, and C++.

GitHub Copilot Features

Code Completion

Copilot’s inline code completion suggests code as you type, from single lines to entire functions. Suggestions appear as ghost text that you accept with Tab. Copilot considers the current file, open tabs, and your project context to provide relevant suggestions. It learns from your coding patterns and becomes more accurate over time within a session.

Copilot Chat

Open the chat panel (Ctrl+Shift+I) to have a conversation about your code. Ask Copilot to explain functions, suggest improvements, find bugs, write tests, or generate documentation. Chat responses reference your actual code with clickable links to specific files and lines. Use @workspace to ask questions about your entire project, or @terminal to get help with command-line tasks.

Agent Mode

Copilot’s Agent mode autonomously plans and executes multi-step coding tasks. Describe a feature or bug fix, and Copilot Agent analyzes your codebase, plans the implementation, makes changes across multiple files, and runs tests to verify the result. It iterates on failures, adjusting its approach until the task succeeds or presents alternative solutions.

Inline Chat

Press Ctrl+I to open inline chat on any selected code. Describe changes you want made: “add error handling,” “convert to TypeScript,” “make this function async,” or “optimize this query.” Copilot rewrites the selection according to your instructions, showing a diff for review before applying changes.

Copilot for CLI

GitHub Copilot CLI provides AI assistance in the terminal. Describe what you want to do in natural language, and Copilot suggests the appropriate shell command. It explains what each command does, handles complex pipe chains, and translates between different shell syntaxes. Especially valuable for DevOps tasks, git operations, and system administration commands you don’t use frequently.

Pull Request Summaries

Copilot automatically generates pull request descriptions summarizing the changes, their purpose, and potential impact. It analyzes the diff, commit messages, and related issues to create comprehensive PR summaries that help reviewers understand the context without reading every line of code.

Setting Up GitHub Copilot

Step 1: Subscribe to Copilot

GitHub Copilot is available as Individual ($10/month or $100/year), Business ($19/user/month), or Enterprise ($39/user/month). Individual includes code completion, chat, and CLI. Business adds organization management, policy controls, and IP indemnity. Enterprise adds knowledge bases and fine-tuned models. Students and open-source maintainers get free access.

Step 2: Install in Your Editor

Install the GitHub Copilot extension in VS Code, JetBrains IDEs (IntelliJ, PyCharm, WebStorm), Vim/Neovim, or Visual Studio. Sign in with your GitHub account. The extension activates automatically and begins providing suggestions as you code.

Step 3: Configure Preferences

Adjust Copilot settings in your editor. Enable or disable specific features (inline suggestions, chat, Agent mode). Configure which file types trigger suggestions. Set up keyboard shortcuts for Copilot actions. Configure proxy settings if working behind a firewall.

GitHub Copilot Best Practices

Write Good Comments

Copilot uses comments as context for suggestions. Write a descriptive comment before the code you want generated: “// Function to calculate compound interest with monthly compounding” produces better results than just positioning your cursor. The more specific your comment, the more accurate the suggestion.

Provide Context Through Open Files

Copilot uses open tabs as context. When working on a feature, keep related files open (interfaces, models, similar implementations). This gives Copilot more context to generate suggestions that match your project’s patterns, naming conventions, and architectural approach.

Review Before Accepting

Always review Copilot suggestions before accepting. Check for logical correctness, security issues (hardcoded values, SQL injection), and alignment with your project’s coding standards. Copilot suggestions are starting points, not final code. Treat them as a first draft from a junior developer.

Use Chat for Understanding

When working with unfamiliar code, use Copilot Chat to understand what existing code does before modifying it. Ask “explain this function,” “what are the edge cases,” or “what could go wrong here.” This builds understanding and prevents introducing bugs through uninformed changes.

Copilot Pricing

Plan	Price	Features
Free	$0	2000 completions/month, 50 chat messages/month
Pro	$10/month	Unlimited completions, unlimited chat, Agent mode
Business	$19/user/month	Everything in Pro + org management, IP indemnity, policy controls
Enterprise	$39/user/month	Everything in Business + knowledge bases, fine-tuning, Bing search

Copilot vs Alternatives

GitHub Copilot offers the widest editor support and largest user base. Cursor IDE provides deeper AI integration with multi-file editing and project-wide understanding. Cursor vs Copilot comes down to whether you prefer an AI-native editor (Cursor) or an AI extension in your existing editor (Copilot). Cursor excels at complex, multi-file changes while Copilot provides smoother inline completion.