What is the GitHub Copilot Chat

extension for Visual Studio?

 Article
 05/14/2024
 5 contributors
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In this article
. Why use Copilot Chat in Visual Studio?
. Prerequisites
. Get GitHub Copilot Chat for Visual Studio
. Use Copilot Chat in Visual Studio
. Next steps

GitHub Copilot Completions and GitHub Copilot Chat in Visual Studio enable
enhanced AI-assisted development in Visual Studio, helping you be more productive
and efficient when writing code.

In this article, you'll learn about using Copilot Chat in Visual Studio, a fully
integrated AI-powered chat experience from GitHub Copilotright within the Visual
Studio IDE. It enables you to get coding information and support, such as syntax,
programming concepts, context-specific code help, test cases, debugging, and more,
without leaving the IDE.

For more information on the GitHub Copilot Completions in Visual Studio, see About
GitHub Copilot Completions for Visual Studio.

Why use Copilot Chat in Visual Studio?

Copilot Chat provides AI assistance to help you make informed decisions and write
better code. With tight integration in Visual Studio, Copilot Chat understands what
you're working on and can help you with development tasks like:

 Code explanations: get in-depth analysis and explanation of how a code block works
 Code help: get answers to programming-related questions in natural language or code
snippet format
 Code refinement: get context-specific code suggestions & recommendations
 Unit testing: generate unit tests
 Profiling: optimize code performance
 Debugging: find issues and get proposed fixes to bugs and exceptions.

Prerequisites
To get started, you need:

 Visual Studio 2022 version 17.8 or later

 Active subscription to GitHub Copilot for Individuals or GitHub Copilot for Business
 GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio
 Sign in to Visual Studio with the GitHub account that has an active GitHub Copilot
subscription