GitHub Copilot Configuration settings

You may apply these configuration settings to enable useful features. Always read the documentation to see if these are safe and beneficial to you.

Customizations discovery in parent directories

When you open a subfolder of a Git repository in Visual Studio Code, this setting instructs VS Code to search for agent customization files, like copilot-instructions.md, AGENTS.md, and CLAUDE.md in parent directories up to the root of the current Git repository. Enable

chat.useCustomizationsInParentRepositories

Copilot Memory

You can use Copilot Memory to remember repository context across Copilot agent interactions.

• On the https://github.com/settings/copilot/features page enable Copilot Memory

To store a memory start the prompt with “Remember: …”

More information on GitHub Copilot memories are at https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/how-tos/use-copilot-agents/copilot-memory

Generic memories for all projects

To store generic instructions, prompt:
“Remember: Never make assumptions, if in doubt, ask clarifying questions“

Project level memories

Memories are concise, actionable facts than Copilot agents will retain across sessions. To enable project level memories and allow agents to automatically save new discoveries in the .github/copilot-memory.md file prompt:
“Create the memory file for agents“

Project level instructions

To generate instructions for agents to avoid the repeated discovery of the entire project, we will create the .github/copilot-instructions.md file:

• On the top of the chat window click the gear icon
• Select Instructions & Rules
• On the top of the screen select Generate agent instructions

Checkpoint file changes

chat.checkpoints.showFileChanges set to ON

Explain button

chat.editing.explainChanges.enabled set to ON

Inline Chat Enable V2

If you want to experiment with the new inline chat feature enable

inlineChat.enableV2

Debugging in the VS Code Integrated Browser

VS Code version 1.112.0 introduced the debugging feature in the Integrated Browser. See Integrated Browser for more information. To enable GitHub Copilot to interact with the Integrated Browser

To enable Chat Tools in the Integrated Browser enable

workbench.browser.enableChatTools

Chat agent troubleshooting

To be able to investigate what the chat agent is doing wrong, while it takes along time to respond, how many tokens it uses, enable the agent debug log and save it to the disk:

github.copilot.chat.agentDebugLog.enabled
github.copilot.chat.agentDebugLog.fileLogging.enabled

Usage suggestions

Hide Sessions

When the chat window is wide enough it displays the list of prior sessions. It is useful, but prevents us to widen the chat window for better reading experience. We can disable this behavior using the chat.viewSessions.enabled setting, or close the prior sessions with the Hide Agent Sessions Sidebar button