Github Copilot Extension Support (manual install)

[bd82]

I understand it is not possible to automatically install Github Copilot in Gitpod
due to licensing issues (not published on open vsx registry).

Problem:

What I don't understand is why an end user cannot manually install it from the *.vsix file directly.
When I do so I get an error:

Possible Cause:

My understanding is that Copilot Ext uses Github Auth Provider in VScode and that Gitpod replaced the
implementation of the Github Authentication Extension which supplies this auth provider.

So the question is:

Does manually installing Copilot extension not work because:

1. A problem in gitpod's replaced Github Auth extension implementation?
2. Microsoft "locking down" usage of Copilot in None pure VSCode IDE context?

Related Issues:

• Epic: Github CodeSpace + Copilot #10242
• github Copilot support #10032
• Github Copilot says the user is not on the whitelist #5060

[akosyakov]

cc @jeanp413 could you answer?

[akosyakov]

I would assume that somehow GitHub token is not good for Copilot extension, maybe some scopes are missing.

[bd82]

I looked at this farther and I suspect that it is not related to scopes.

copilot extension seem to request only [user:email]
But it would still work properly if I modify it's bundled code to request something else (e.g [workflow]).

I suspect there is something special with the client_id which allows copilot to work.
Perhaps this is also why Personal Access Tokens are not supported in the copilot CLI.

• [DOCS]: What OAuth scope is required for gh copilot? github/gh-copilot#1