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Github Copilot– Calling the outside world

Good news if you are using Github Copilot Free or Pro! You can now ask Github Copilot to search the web. This feature was already available for Github Business or Enterprise users but now it is in preview for everyone.

To start using this feature, you first need to enable it in your Copilot settings:

Before if you asked a question about data the model was not trained on, you get a response like this:

If we now ask a question in Copilot Chat where the trained model has no information about, it can search on the web. Therefore include @github in your query. Github Copilot will select an appropriate skill to help answering the question:

 

If the web search is not triggered automatically, you can explicitly trigger it by adding @github #web at the start of your query.

Nice!

More information

Web search in GitHub Copilot Chat now available for Copilot Individual - GitHub Changelog

GitHub Copilot · Your AI pair programmer

Managing Copilot policies as an individual subscriber - GitHub Docs

Asking GitHub Copilot questions in your IDE - GitHub Docs

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