GitHub Copilot | Your AI pair programmer | Revolutionizing programming using copilot

Getting access and testing the AI-powered coding giant — The GitHub Copilot | Coding mate — Copilot | More than auto-complete | powered by OpenAI | Technical preview by Rohinth.S

NOTE :- This blog is made in July, 2021 ( At present, GitHub Copilot is not open sourced and Copilot’s technical preview restricted to limited people for testing purpose )

In future, A new blog will be made if the all new ‘Copilot’ is open sourced and made public

Don’t fly solo !

Copilot is coming for you !

Copilot info

At present, Copilot is restricted to testers, Join the waiting list to get access for Copilot. Steps to join the waiting list is

1. Click here — Join Copilot Waiting List 😎
2. Sign-in/Sign-up to your GitHub account and Join the waiting list. ⏰
3. It will take a time period of around 1–2 weeks to get you accepted. 📆
4. You will be notified with mail once you are accepted. 📭

Successfully added to the waiting list

1. Once you are accepted for the technical preview of Copilot, you will receive a mail of invitation to the private repository ‘copilot-preview’. 📬
2. Accept the invite by signing in with your GitHub ACCOUNT WHICH WAS USED TO JOIN THE WAITING LIST. ✔️
3. Signing-in with any-other account will result in error-404. ❎

GitHub invitation to collaborate on copilot-preview repo

You will also receive a mail with link to download/install GitHub’s copilot. 📬

Mail with link to install GitHub copilot

1. Click on ‘install GitHub Copilot’. You will be taken to ‘marketplace’ in your browser.
2. Click install and choose ‘Visual Studio code’ and click on open link.

Open link in Visual Studio code

Visual Studio code opens and displays the Copilot’s details, feature contributions, change log, etc.

VS code will be opened and be ready to install the copilot

1. Click ‘install’ near Copilot’s logo.
2. You will be prompted to sign-in to your GitHub to authenticate the extension.

Sign-in to GitHub to authenticate the extension

1. If your signed-in account matches the authorized GitHub profile list to access Copilot technical preview, the extension will be successfully authenticated. ✔️
2. Else the authentication of the extension will fail, and you will be prompted to join the wait list with your GitHub account. ❎

Authentication Successful and Copilot is on board

If you don’t have access to copilot, Authentication will be not be successful

Copilot is all set to be tested !

(Note :- Check to the bottom right and confirm that your copilot is enabled)

Copilot offers 4 handy options namely:-

1. In windows, you can click to select options or use short-cuts. Use ‘Alt+]’ to go to next suggestion, ‘Alt+[‘ to go to previous suggestion, use ‘Tab’ to accept the current suggestion and ‘Ctrl+Enter’ to open copilot and synthesize more code suggestions.
2. Name your ‘function’ in an appropriate way so the copilot can identify your function’s cause and can suggest code snippets accurately.

Comparison on JavaScript and Python

If you are not satisfied with the suggested code snippet, you can open copilot to synthesize more code snippets to select from.

Open Copilot to synthesize more code samples

Here is the Comment section suggestion by copilot.

Suggestion from Copilot

Suggestion from Copilot

1. Finally, Last but not least, The feature I love the most. 😌
2. This is the feature which takes common English language, understands the purpose of the code and generates the appropriate code. 😍
3. Just comment out the so called ‘To-do’ in your desired programming language. 📑
4. Sit back and get ready to just review the suggestion snippets and press ‘Tab’ to accept the suggestions. 🆒

Type the To-Do in the comment s— See Copilot’s Magic

Sum of a list ( Using Copilot )

1. Comment the To-do of function and start the function definition part.
2. Press ‘Tab’ to accept the suggestion.
3. Complete the program and execute it to get the output.

Suggested code snippet for sum of a list

Suggested code to print the output of the created function

The Copilot’s auto generated code is working perfectly

Advantages & Disadvantages of Copilot is beyond the scope of this blog (and seriously, ‘Copilot’ is just a budding newbie with a lot more cool capabilities of revolutionizing the programming world).

There will be much enhancements, code fixes/ bug fixes, corrections, and a lot-lot more releases of Copilot. Wish this Copilot will be open-sourced. 😍

Stay-Tuned for a lot more stuffs from me 😎
Until then,
Rohinth Signing off , See Ya ! ❤️

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