GitHub Copilot SDK - Supercharged

40 languages. One SDK. Agents for every app.

Trusted by 20,000+ developers globally and growing daily.

Embed Copilot's agentic workflows in your application - now available in public preview as a programmable SDK for 40 languages.

The GitHub Copilot SDK exposes the same engine behind Copilot CLI: a production-tested agent runtime you can invoke programmatically. No need to build your own orchestration - you define agent behavior, Copilot handles planning, tool invocation, file edits, and more.

⭐ If you find this SDK useful, star the repo! It helps others discover it and keeps us motivated to ship more.

See the individual SDK READMEs for usage examples and API reference. For architecture details, see MULTI_LANGUAGE_SDKS.md.

Synced with upstream github/copilot-sdk v0.3.0 (public preview) and ported all features to all 40 SDKs:

• Per-session GitHub authentication – Scope auth tokens per session for multi-tenant apps
• Session idle timeout – Auto-cleanup inactive sessions with configurable timeout
• SessionFs – Session-scoped filesystem provider with 10 I/O operations
• Commands & UI Elicitation – Register slash commands and interactive prompts/dialogs
• System prompt customization – Fine-grained control with append/replace/customize modes
• Per-agent skills – Preload skill content into agent context at startup
• Per-agent tool visibility – excludedTools to control tool access per agent
• Runtime request headers – Custom HTTP headers per message turn
• Model capabilities override – Deep-merge overrides for model feature flags
• Config discovery – Auto-detect MCP servers and skill directories from workspace
• Sub-agent streaming events – Control streaming event forwarding from sub-agents
• session.getMetadata() – Retrieve session metadata via RPC
• MCP server config refactoring – Separate stdio/HTTP server config types
• Image generation – Response format and image options across all SDKs

For a complete walkthrough, see the Getting Started Guide.

Quick steps:

1. (Optional) Install the Copilot CLI

For Node.js, Python, and .NET SDKs, the Copilot CLI is bundled automatically and no separate installation is required. For the Go and Rust SDKs, install the CLI manually or ensure copilot is available in your PATH unless you opt into their application-level CLI bundling features.

2. Install your preferred SDK using the commands above.

3. See the SDK README for usage examples and API documentation.

All SDKs communicate with the Copilot CLI server via JSON-RPC:

Your Application
       ↓
  SDK Client
       ↓ JSON-RPC
  Copilot CLI (server mode)

The SDK manages the CLI process lifecycle automatically. You can also connect to an external CLI server. See the Getting Started Guide for details on running the CLI in server mode.

Yes, a GitHub Copilot subscription is required to use the GitHub Copilot SDK, unless you are using BYOK (Bring Your Own Key). With BYOK, you can use the SDK without GitHub authentication by configuring your own API keys from supported LLM providers. For standard usage (non-BYOK), refer to the GitHub Copilot pricing page, which includes a free tier with limited usage.

Billing for the GitHub Copilot SDK is based on the same model as the Copilot CLI, with each prompt being counted towards your premium request quota. For more information on premium requests, see Requests in GitHub Copilot.

Yes, the GitHub Copilot SDK supports BYOK (Bring Your Own Key). You can configure the SDK to use your own API keys from supported LLM providers (e.g. OpenAI, Azure AI Foundry, Anthropic) to access models through those providers. See the BYOK documentation for setup instructions and examples.

Note: BYOK uses key-based authentication only. Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD), managed identities, and third-party identity providers are not supported.

The SDK supports multiple authentication methods:

• GitHub signed-in user - Uses stored OAuth credentials from copilot CLI login
• OAuth GitHub App - Pass user tokens from your GitHub OAuth app
• Environment variables - COPILOT_GITHUB_TOKEN, GH_TOKEN, GITHUB_TOKEN
• BYOK - Use your own API keys (no GitHub auth required)

See the Authentication documentation for details on each method.

No — for Node.js, Python, and .NET SDKs, the Copilot CLI is bundled automatically as a dependency. You do not need to install it separately.

For Go and Rust SDKs, the CLI is not bundled by default. Install the CLI manually, ensure copilot is available in your PATH, or opt into their application-level CLI bundling features.

Advanced: You can override the CLI binary or connect to an external server. See the individual SDK README for language-specific options.

By default, the SDK exposes the Copilot CLI's first-party tools, similar to running the CLI with --allow-all. Tool execution is still governed by each SDK's permission handler, so applications can approve, deny, or customize tool calls. You can customize tool availability by configuring the SDK client options to enable and disable specific tools. Refer to the individual SDK documentation for details on tool configuration and to the Copilot CLI documentation for the list of available tools.

Yes, the GitHub Copilot SDK allows you to define custom agents, skills, and tools. You can extend the functionality of the agents by implementing your own logic and integrating additional tools as needed. Refer to the SDK documentation of your preferred language for more details.

Yes, check out the custom instructions and SDK-specific guidance:

• Node.js / TypeScript
• Python
• .NET
• Go
• Rust (SDK guidance; custom instructions not yet published)
• Java

All models available via Copilot CLI are supported in the SDK. The SDK also exposes a method which will return the models available so they can be accessed at runtime.

The GitHub Copilot SDK is currently in Public Preview. While it is functional and can be used for development and testing, it may not yet be suitable for production use.

Please use the GitHub Issues page to report bugs or request new features. We welcome your feedback to help improve the SDK.

• Documentation – Full documentation index
• Getting Started – Tutorial to get up and running
• Setup Guides – Architecture, deployment, and scaling
• Authentication – GitHub OAuth, BYOK, and more
• Features – Hooks, custom agents, MCP, skills, and more
• Architecture – How all 40 SDKs work under the hood
• Troubleshooting – Common issues and solutions
• Cookbook – Practical recipes for common tasks across all languages
• More Resources – Additional examples, tutorials, and community resources
• Contributing – How to contribute (new languages welcome!)
• Website – Landing page with examples in every language

See CONTRIBUTING.md for contribution guidelines.

MIT