Copilot SDK

Embed GitHub Copilot’s AI capabilities into your own applications. The SDK manages a Copilot CLI process and communicates via JSON-RPC - you control sessions, tools, and streaming programmatically.

Overview

The SDK doesn’t call the Copilot API directly. It spawns a Copilot CLI subprocess and talks to it via JSON-RPC over stdio. The CLI handles authentication, model selection, and API communication.

┌─────────────────┐     JSON-RPC      ┌──────────────┐     API      ┌─────────────┐
│   Your App      │ <───────────────> │  Copilot CLI │ <──────────> │  Copilot    │
│  (uses SDK)     │      (stdio)      │   (runtime)  │              │  Service    │
└─────────────────┘                   └──────────────┘              └─────────────┘

Three layers:

• Client (CopilotClient) - spawns the CLI, manages the connection, creates sessions
• Session (CopilotSession) - an independent conversation with its own history, system prompt, and tools
• Tools - functions you define that Copilot can call to take actions

Contents

• Concepts - How the SDK works
  • Architecture - System overview, client-session-tool layers
  • Sessions - Managing conversations with Copilot
  • Tools - Extending Copilot with custom capabilities
  • Events & Streaming - Real-time response handling
• Quickstart - Get a Copilot-powered app running in minutes
• Deep Dives - Advanced patterns
  • Tools - Advanced tool patterns, error handling, MCP integration
  • Streaming - Event handling, UI patterns, performance
  • Sessions - Multi-session patterns, persistence, context management
  • Models - Model selection, BYOK, capabilities
  • Testing - Testing strategies for Copilot-powered apps
• Notes - Personal gotchas and experiment results
  • Experiments - Experiment ideas and findings

Resources

• Copilot SDK repo
• GitHub Copilot docs
• Source