Introduction

  • 1 minute

GitHub Copilot is an AI-powered developer assistant that helps you work faster and with greater confidence throughout the software development lifecycle. Copilot uses the context of your code and comments to help generate code, explain existing logic, refactor implementations, fix bugs, and write tests—all directly from your development environment.

Research finds that when GitHub Copilot helps developers code faster, they can focus on solving bigger problems, stay in the flow longer, and feel more fulfilled with their work.

OpenAI created the generative pretrained language model in GitHub Copilot, powered by OpenAI Codex. An extension is available for Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Visual Studio, Neovim, and the JetBrains suite of integrated development environments (IDEs).

Learning objectives

By the end of this module, you'll:

  • Understand how GitHub Copilot can help you write, understand, and improve code by providing context-aware suggestions, explanations, and code generation.
  • Understand the various ways to trigger GitHub Copilot.
  • Comprehend the differences among GitHub Copilot Free, Pro, Business, and Enterprise.
  • Know how to configure GitHub Copilot.
  • Know how to troubleshoot GitHub Copilot.

Prerequisites

  • GitHub account
  • Basic understanding of GitHub fundamentals