GitHub Copilot is an AI pair programmer that suggests line completions and entire functions inside development environments. It helps developers write code faster by making suggestions based on context.
GitHub Copilot is an artificial intelligence coding assistant developed by GitHub in partnership with OpenAI. It uses a technique called Codex, which is a descendant of GPT-3, to generate suggestions for code as a developer is typing in an integrated development environment (IDE).
Copilot analyzes the code context and developer intent to suggest completions for the next line or method. It can suggest names for variables and functions, boilerplate code, and even entire blocks of code like loops or class definitions. The suggestions are made inline inside the IDE in real time as the developer is coding.
The tool is intended to boost developer productivity by reducing time spent on rote coding tasks. It learns from public and private code repositories on GitHub to understand programming patterns and provide relevant suggestions personalized for each developer's coding style.
As Copilot is powered by a type of machine learning, its suggestions improve over time the more it is used. GitHub claims it can reduce the amount of time spent debugging and searching for coding solutions. The tool launched in 2021 and is available as a paid service integrated into several popular IDEs like Visual Studio Code, JetBrains IDEs, and Neovim.
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