GitHub Copilot turns your editor into an AI-assisted workspace that can suggest code, explain code, fix code, and even help you learn new frameworks or languages—all without leaving your IDE. And with Copilot Chat, you get a ChatGPT-style experience that understands your codebase and development environment.

In this blog, we’ll walk through:

• What GitHub Copilot actually is
• When to use Copilot vs Copilot Chat
• Real-world use cases (beyond “autocomplete”)
• How Copilot works behind the scenes
• Supported IDEs
• Chat participants, variables, and slash commands that make Copilot feel like a real teammate

What is GitHub Copilot?

GitHub Copilot is an AI-powered coding assistant that sits inside your IDE and suggests entire lines or blocks of code as you type. You describe what you want in a comment, and Copilot attempts to write it for you.

Behind the scenes, Copilot is powered by large language models (LLMs) that have been trained to understand both natural language and code. You stay in control: you can accept, reject, or modify suggestions at any time.

Copilot vs Copilot Chat – When to Use What

GitHub Copilot (inline suggestions)

Use this when you are:

• Writing code directly and want quick suggestions
• Working solo and know roughly what you want to build
• Filling out repetitive logic, loops, mappings, and boilerplate
• Translating small code snippets from one language to another

GitHub Copilot Chat (conversational help)

Use this when you need:

• In-depth assistance rather than just a single snippet
• Explanations for unfamiliar code
• Help to fix bugs or errors
• Guidance on writing unit tests
• Help understanding frameworks, APIs, or patterns

In short:

• Copilot = an inline coding assistant
• Copilot Chat = conversational AI pair programmer

Where Can You Use GitHub Copilot?

GitHub Copilot supports most of the popular IDEs used by development teams today, including:

• Visual Studio
• Visual Studio Code
• Vim / Neovim
• JetBrains IDEs (IntelliJ, WebStorm, PyCharm, Rider, etc.)
• SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
• Xcode
• Eclipse

That means you can bring AI assistance into your existing workflows without changing tools.

How GitHub Copilot Works Behind the Scenes

You don’t have to be an architect to use Copilot—but it’s helpful to know the basics of how it works.

A simplified flow looks like this:

1. Your IDE Plugin
   • You install the GitHub Copilot extension in your IDE.
   • The plugin handles authentication with your GitHub account.

1. Authentication & License Check
   • When you start using Copilot, it checks that you have a valid license and are allowed to use the service.

1. Context (Prompt) is Sent Securely
   • The relevant parts of your current file, cursor context, and prompt are sent as a “request” to the Copilot service hosted in a GitHub-managed Azure environment.

1. AI Model Generates Suggestions
   • The backend model generates one or more code suggestions based on your context.

1. Safety & Policy Filters
   • Before suggestions are returned, Copilot applies a series of filters such as:
     • Abusive language checks
     • Security filters
     • Basic PII checks
     • Duplicate detection / OSS filter to reduce the risk of copying long chunks of licensed open-source code verbatim

1. Suggestions Appear in Your IDE
   • You see the suggestion inline and can accept, reject, or edit it.

You remain in full control of what is added to your repository.

Chat Participants, Variables & Slash Commands

One of the underrated superpowers of Copilot Chat is “participants”—special handles that tell Copilot where to look for context.

• @workspace
  • Gives Copilot access to your entire project.
  • Use this when you want it to understand relationships across files, like “find where this function is used” or “summarize this project’s structure.”

• @terminal
  • Has context about your integrated terminal.
  • Great for: “The last kubectl command failed—what went wrong?” or “Fix the previous command.”
• @vscode
  • Knows about Visual Studio Code commands and features.
  • Ask things like: “How do I debug this project?” or “Generate a launch configuration for this app.”
• You can also use slash commands (e.g., /tests, /explain, /fix) depending on your IDE and configuration, to trigger specific actions quickly.

Refer to GitHub Copilot Cheat Sheet

@workspace - Ask about your workspace
/explain - Explain how the code in your active editor works
/tests - Generate unit tests for the selected code
/fix - Propose a fix for the problems in the selected code
/new - Scaffold code for a new file or project in a workspace
/newNotebook - Create a new Jupyter Notebook
/setupTests - Set up tests in your project (Experimental)

@vscode - Ask questions about VS Code
/search - Generate query parameters for workspace search

@terminal - Ask how to do something in the terminal
/explain - Explain something in the terminal

Putting It All Together

GitHub Copilot and Copilot Chat aren’t here to replace developers—they’re here to:

• Reduce repetitive work
• Shorten the feedback loop
• Help teams adopt best practices faster
• Make onboarding smoother for new developers
• Keep you focused on business logic rather than boilerplate