Chapter 2. Coding with Copilot

Now that we have the basic foundations of what Copilot is, how it works, and how to get it, we can move on to the key aspect of how to use it. Since Copilot is intended to function like your AI assistant, you need to understand how to work and communicate with your assistant. The mechanics of this boil down to learning to work with the integrations in the IDE. Learning the mechanics of these in this chapter and the next will set you up for success with the remaining chapters.  And they will also answer these questions:

  • How do you query the assistant and provide directions for what you need?
  • How do you follow-up to responses, choose among multiple suggestions, etc.? 
  • Which ways are best to communicate with it for quick suggestions or longer explanations when you need them?
  • How can I best leverage the AI to truly help with coding tasks?

Copilot provides two primary modes for interaction. The first mode is integration within your IDE’s editor, menus, and CLI. ...

Get Learning GitHub Copilot now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.