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What is GitHub Copilot Edits (Preview)?

  • Artikel

GitHub Copilot Edits, a preview feature of GitHub Copilot Chat, is designed to help iterating across multiple files more efficient. This feature is available as a preview experience in Visual Studio 2022 version 17.13 Preview 2 and later.

Edits combines the conversational flow of chat and an inline review experience, offering the following benefits:

  • Preview with clarity: Know exactly what's being modified with a summary of the affected files and the proposed changes.
  • Review with flow: View code diffs inline, directly in your editor. Use the TAB key to accept or the Alt+Del key to reject individual changes, or apply/dismiss all at once.
  • Iterate with confidence: Use checkpoints to revisit earlier iterations of a code file or try an alternative approach anytime for new ideas.

Prerequisites

When to use Copilot Edits vs. Copilot Chat

Functionality Copilot Chat Copilot Edits
Primary use case General purpose conversational interface for understanding programming concepts, asking questions about code, and generating code. Focused multi-file editing interface with code review, in-file preview, and rollback experience to make iterating on code across multiple files easier.
Previewing proposed code Manually apply each code block to each file in your solution to evaluate code-diff. Automatically applies proposed code diff in each code file, making comprehension of the proposed changes easier.
Code review experience Accept or reject a file worth of changes at once. Accept or reject individual chunks of code within a file.
Versioning Can use existing version control. Adds a rollback experience to reset edited files to a previous state. Tracks all changes - proposed, accepted, dismissed, and manual edits made to the file. These checkpoints are retained until the user closes Visual Studio.

Using Copilot Edits

Start an Edits thread

Animated screenshot that shows starting a Copilot Edits thread and getting a response.

  1. Select View > GitHub Copilot Chat to launch GitHub Copilot Chat. You can also launch it from the GitHub Copilot status icon.

  2. Select Create new Edit session to create a new Edits thread.

  3. Enter a chat prompt using natural language about the specific edit you want to make. To help Copilot Edits provide better code suggestions, you can also add relevant context to your prompt. Reference context by typing the # commands to refer to a file, your solution, errors, or a symbol specifically.

Tip

We suggest you ask for one commit’s worth of changes at a time. The more you can break down a problem, the better the result.

Accept or discard edits

After Copilot Edits proposes a code iteration, you can preview these suggestions in your code files. You can then Accept to commit the proposed changes.

Review each proposed change

Animated screenshot that shows applying edits to file and accepting by chunk.

  • Start by clicking on a filename.

  • The file opens and proposed changes are displayed as a diff in the code editor.

  • Use TAB to accept a proposal, Alt+Del to reject a proposal, or F8 to go to the next proposal.

  • If you accept or reject a proposal, the cursor will automatically move to the next proposal.

Accept all proposed changes in a file

Animated screenshot that shows accepting edits to a specific file.

Click the checkbox next to a filename to accept all proposed changes specific to a file.

Accept all proposed changes in all files

Animated screenshot that shows accepting all edits on all files.

Select Accept all to accept the proposed code changes across all files where changes are available. Files with proposed changes are bolded.

Revert edits

Revert to the original state

Screenshot that shows reverting file to the original state before any edits.

While reviewing file changes, if you accept or reject a code proposal you didn't mean to, select Reset changes to reset the listed files to their state before the iteration was generated.

Reset changes also resets any manual changes made to the files. A popup dialog confirms the action before reverting file states

Revert to a previous iteration

Screenshot that shows reverting file to a previous iteration.

At any time, you can select the Reset to Iteration on a previous iteration to reset all proposed and manual changes made to the listed files. A popup dialog confirms the action before reverting file states.

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