Thanks for the feedback @mattbrandman. Could you say more about what is 'hanging' when indexing?

It is also unclear if a chat works without indexing the repo first as well.

Chat will still work, it's just the scenarios that connect natural language questions like 'where does authentication happen' to underlying code won't work.

/ cc @colinwm

Thanks @syossan27 – we've noticed this issue too and are working on a fix.

This should be fixed now, would love to hear back if you're still facing issues?

Got it. Thanks. And just confirming that the repository is showing up as indexed when you open up a chat session?

@arfon Yes: Indexed for improved understanding and accuracy.

@arfon it seems to be really hard to get a response at all which is related to the index.

I think you've identified a good gap in Copilot's capabilities here. Currently Copilot knows how to do the following four things:

• show-symbol-definition: To retrieve the lines of code that define a code symbol from a specified repository's checked in git files. This function is used when we have an exact symbol name to query with.
• pathsearch: To retrieve a file from a repository's git checked in files that matches the filename or file path provided. This function is used when the exact filename or file path to a file checked in to the repository is provided.
• bing-search: To search the web using the Bing search engine. This function is used when the user's query pertains to recent events, information that is frequently updated, new developments, trends, technologies, or is extremely specific or detailed.
  codesearch: To search code within a specified repository's git checked in files. This function is used when a user asks questions related to the repository's code, such as where or how certain functionality has been implemented.

(you can ask Copilot about this too)

What you're asking Copilot to do here is related to the various code search scenarios, but isn't quite right (as you say, you want a count/list from the index).

It's certainly possible to teach Copilot how to do this kind of thing and we'll put it on our backlog for sure. Can you say more about what you're wanting from Copilot in this kind of scenario? Is it a better understanding of what the 'shape' of a repository is, or were you looking for particular content?

It's certainly possible to teach Copilot how to do this kind of thing and we'll put it on our backlog for sure. Can you say more about what you're wanting from Copilot in this kind of scenario? Is it a better understanding of what the 'shape' of a repository is, or were you looking for particular content?

In my case, I encountered both.

The former use is a mono-repo asking for a description under a specific directory or asking for a use under a specific directory.
For example, the question "What is under the server directory?" will receive the answer "I'm sorry, but I couldn't find any information about a 'server' directory in the 'xxx' repository."
If I changed the question to "What framework is used under the server directory?", I could get answers such as Rails or Next.js. However, what I wanted with the original question was something a bit more abstract, such as "This is a client SPA for an API in the server directory."

The latter is a case where you want to find code under a specific directory or get the diff of multiple files that are close in usage.
For example, the questions "Is there a Google client under the server/app/gateways directory?" or "What are the differences in specifications for each client under the server/app/gateways directory?" will receive the answer "I'm sorry, but I couldn't find specific files under the server/app/ gateways directory in the xxx repository."

Great suggestion, I agree this is a missing feature. We've added this to the backlog ✅

Hi @PaulDMendoza – this is great feedback, thank you.

My code base is 99% of C# but when I asked it to generate a unit text example it generated it in python. I think I need to provide some base level instructions to all the chats with some basic information. For example, I have created a custom Chat in ChatGPT that has the following instruction.

Yeah, this is a great idea, and we already do something similar with Copilot, but crucially we don't currently tell Copilot what programming languages are used in a repository. Doing this seems like a 'no-brainer' and I'll put this on the backlog!

Thanks for sharing these examples @tristanbes! They are super useful.

To be completely transparent, these are not the kinds of questions that Copilot Chat is able to answer right now - but we are working to fill these gaps and make Copilot better. Your examples are really valuable to help us prioritise.

We'll also look at how we can help you and other developers to understand what Copilot is good at and what it isn't good at - we don't do that very well right now.

Hi Eran! I'm sorry to hear that you're having a frustrating experience. A couple of questions:

1. Are you using Copilot Chat on GitHub.com, or in your IDE? If so, which IDE are you using?
2. Can you share some examples of the kinds of questions you're asking? If you're not comfortable sharing here, feel free to email me at the @github.com email on my profile.

We are testing out Git Hub Enterprise & Copilot Enterprise for some of the same reasons and have similar questions. Local Visual Studio Pro Copilot Enterprise subscription Chat & Completion extensions do not seem to be aware if the indexed repos. Is there some other aspect to configure, etc. where this works locally?

For example, a Copilot Web chat prompt of "Use the Collector repo to find examples of Jobs and then create a Job that reads all the files in a given directory" provides a reasonable response of "..., class ReadDirectoryFilesJob : AbstractJob ..." with appropriate use of the AbstractJob class including the class method entry point which is the kind of functionality we are looking for.

On the other hand, locally the Visual Studio Pro Copilot Enterprise subscription chat for the same prompt returns "I'm sorry for the confusion, but as an AI, I don't have the ability to access or search through repositories, including the Collector repo". In addition, Copilot Enterprise subscription Completions VS Pro extension can not comprehend this directive without a number of related repo files open locally.

Note that we have not added any information to the repo's knowledge base. I will also note that the local Copilot extension does not have the ability to use the Bing search tool.

Thanks for the detailed feedback @emartin-monterey. It's possible that the (GitHub) Copilot Extension in Visual Studio Pro needs some configuration/setup here. I'm checking with the team to find out what might be the issue.

I posed this same question to GitHub Enterprise support and their response was:

"I was just informed by engineering that this feature is not available yet outside of GitHub.com. They are working to have this feature available for Visual Studio soon. I recommend you keep an eye on the GitHub Blog and our social media feeds for the latest announcements about new features and fixes.
You can also check out our Public roadmap to see what we're currently working on."

Looking at the public roadmap linked and even the backlog, Copilot is not mentioned and nothing related seems to be slotted for this year so far, which tells me this capability is not really on the radar. Paying $39 a user for the Copilot "chat with your code" feature, on top of the regular GitHub Enterprise subscription fee, is certainly less of a value-add than what we envisioned when upgrading to the Enterprise subscription.

I was hoping that the enterprise edition would grant the tool access to the entire repository, eliminating the need to copy the code for the initial question on a specific file. Unfortunately, it appears that for now, it's limited. I can inquire about a specific file if I provide the path, but this isn't conducive to seamless back-and-forth conversations.

@erangross – are you specifically looking for Copilot to have this additional 'repository-wide context' in the IDE chat sessions?

@arfon This would be huge! Biggest missing feature IMO!

@erangross – are you familiar with the @workspace command in VS Code: https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_84#_workspace

Great suggestions, thanks @neo-cheung .

I would be very happy for my organization if this is supported 🙏

Great suggestion, thanks @kokuyouwind. Out of interest, would this be a preference for you (i.e., is it only you that speaks Japanese, or your team, or your whole organization)?

@arfon
The whole organization. Since I am Japanese working for a Japanese company and almost all of my colleagues are Japanese, I always write the Description of Pull Requests in my organization in Japanese.

Got it. Thanks @kokuyouwind - that makes a lot of sense!

Thanks for the quick reply and additional info!

I've done some further testing and both github.com and VSCode IDE @workspace seem to be behaving similarly.

The issue is they both have trouble referencing my schema.prisma file. They seem to prefer to referencing .ts files.

e.g. the prompt @workspace what fields are in the account model in schema.prisma

only returns references to .ts files, not schema.prisma. This is for both versions of Copilot.

@seanemmer That's interesting! My guess is that this is something to do with the file being a .prisma file. On Copilot Chat on GitHub.com, can you confirm what question you're asking? Do you get any little indicators like this in the response, or nothing?

Even more interesting. Here's a sample prompt:

But the reference is not to our schema.prisma, it's to the schema.prisma in a public repo:

https://github.com/Airbotics/uptane-server/blob/3ffe8ffb58e4ea19ed0bb724a07ea798dc0348ff/src/prisma/schema.prisma#L164-L278

Even stranger! Just to confirm, did you get that answer without navigating to that public repo?

Did you take that screenshot immediately after getting the answer, or was there any kind of page refresh in between?

It is possible that Copilot could run a search including files outside of your repository - and that search could include public repositories - but I'm surprised not to see an indicator showing the search that was run, like in my screenshot above.

No page refresh, I'd never been to that repo.

It's no longer replicating today. Now both github.com and vscode correctly references my schema.prisma file! Not sure if you changed anything on your end.

Github.com correctly refers to all of the fields on the Account model. Vscode still fails in answering the question despite having a reference to schema.prisma:

The Account model in your schema.prisma file is not directly provided in the excerpts you've shared. However, there are references to an Account model in the relations of other models. For example, in the[redacted] model, there's a relation to Account:

This suggests that there is an Account model in your schema, but without the direct excerpt of the Account model, I can't provide the exact fields in it.

Great question! We'll update the GitHub Changelog (which shows on your GitHub homepage) when we ship new improvements to Copilot 😊

Thanks for reporting this @yanskun - I've filed a bug with the team to look into this!

Hi @yanskun – we've been trying to replicated this issue but have so far failed. Can you share with me a little more detail:

• What browser are you using?
• Do you have an extensions enabled? If so, do you still see this issue with them disabled?

@arfon
Thank you
When I was turning on/off various extensions, I realized that they were not compatible with Sourcegraph..!

Ah, so just to confirm, disabling the Sourcegraph extension fixed the issue for you?

@arfon
Sorry,
Yes, I disabled it and it was resolved.

Hi @ouweiya – I'm afraid this isn't shipped just yet, but it is being actively worked!

👋🏻 Thanks for flagging! I can see that preserving formatting when you copy from Copilot Chat would be useful - I'll make sure that feedback gets to the right place.

I'm wondering if Copilot pull request summaries could be a better fit that avoids this problem. Have you tried that?

👋 @mtaran !

It looks like Copilot (incorrectly) went and retrieved information about the thing you're looking at in the UI. A couple of questions (in the attached image below):

Essentially, I'm curious if you used either of the options in this dialog here? ("Ask Copilot about this diff" or "Attach to thread")?

Thanks for your patience! I just checked and we do have an outstanding bug here, which means that if you don't have a Copilot Enterprise seat, you can't manage knowledge bases. We're working to get that fixed, and we expect it to be sorted by mid-August. Sorry for the inconvenience 😞 !

Great, to hear that a fix is on the way 😀. Thanks for the amazing feedback experience. I did not expect to have any answer 45 minutes after I posted the issue. That's awesome 🥳.

Hi @KBEMobisys this issue should be fixed for you! Please let us know whether you still have this problem. 🙏

@khenckel The problem is solved! Now it works like described in the documentation. 🥳 Thanks for fixing. 🙏🏻

No problem, thank you for the bug report ❤️

Thanks for flagging this @ekroon! Is it just this example, or have you hit others? We experimented with a new filtering algorithm recently, and I'm wondering if that could be falsely flagging specific terms here (like calendar)

@beyondcompute we did change the underlying model - is the problem mostly constrained to fetching relevant files?

No, just the “quality of answers” even to general questions (like “how to do X in react-testing-library”). The answers feel comparable with Claude 3.5 Sonnet (used via poe.com) but when I “press” Copilot chat for different answers, I get “hallucinated” responses with non-existing APIs being “invented”, etc. Again, it feels like the quality of Copilot’s intelligence has deteriorated, that’s all. I prefer models available via Poe (for non-confidential, “general” questions) as of late.

Completely understand. Are the problems involving public repositories or internal repositories specific to your enterprise? Or both?

@beyondcompute which IDE are you using? And are you noticing this both inline in your text editor and in chat?

It looks like it's an authorization issue. Can you confirm that you've been logged into your organization that has Copilot Enterprise?

@eshwer Yes, I can confirm I'm logged into the enterprise.
I'm also an enterprise owner, and this issue started randomly, so not sure where to start looking.

Do you mind creating a support ticket? The team will help resolve with a more reliable SLA.

Yes, this is the ticket ID: 2939445

Thanks for the reply @eshwer !
I see, thats good to hear! This could be really useful specially when you want to know when what thing happened, and even more if you use some sort of convetion on your commit messages writring.

I'll wait for your post of the changelogs!

Hey @balboFK, mind trying this again? I would love to see if it works. We just released the ability to search commits.

Hello @eshwer how are you? I tried using it, but since the start of this week, and mostly yesterday, I started receiving this message from any prompts.

As you can see on the image , I just started the conversation, and its already happening. So i haven't been able to use it as much. Its also hapenning a lot on my VSCode too, sadly.

Hey, thanks for reporting, I've anecdotally have been seeing this a lot as well. I have escalated internally this issue and hopefully will resolve soon!

I see! Thanks for your work @eshwer . I'll wait for an reply on it, then we can go back to testing the the ability to search commits.

Mind catching a screen recording?

@eshwer / @arfon / @phillmv Can anyone help me with this?

I'm afraid this isn't possible currently. / cc @timrogers incase he has any insights on longer term roadmaps.

Thank you @arfon , I hope @timrogers have the insights, if we could integrate "copilot for Pull Requests" features with Azure DevOps then it will really help a lot of organisations.

@ManavKumar2701 I am an external consultant working with GitHub a lot and we do have a pull request setup implemented with Microsoft for GitHub Enterprise Server (POC stage, going to POV in Q4). That could also work for Azure DevOps.

I don't see GitHub adding that functionality to Azure DevOps itself, as none of the UI changes are being moved there as far as we can see. I'd be happy to chat on it. Shoot me a message through LinkedIn if you want to discuss: https://linkedin.com/in/bosrob

@ManavKumar2701 👋🏻 At the moment, we have no plans to bring Copilot pull request summaries, Copilot Chat in GitHub.com or other pull request-related features to Azure DevOps. Sorry!

Hey @BenjaminBenetti!
Regarding:
(1) Can't access private repo - if your org is protected by SAML/SSO, we recently had a regression in @github but we have now fixed it! I'd recommend re-authenticated and trying again. Let me know if it still isn't working?

(2) Docker not having access to the repository - if you have installed the extension on your personal account and are trying to have it read data from an organization, you will need to ask your org admin to install the extension instead

Hey, @eshwer thanks for the lighting fast response!

(1)
You are totally right! we are an SSO organization.
I tried signing out of my GitHub account in visual studio code, not only for copilot chat, but completely. It doesn't seem to have an effect. Copilot still has no idea what repo I'm talking about, despite having it open in vscode.

Providing the exact same prompt to copilot on GitHub.com produces an astounding result, with tech summary, important README files, ect.

(2)
I have installed the docker extension organization wide. I'm pretty sure it's suffering from the issue in (1).

While writing this and testing chat I have had a bit of a break through. If I paste in the url of the repo, copilot in vscode can provide much the same response as on GitHub.com! So maybe the issue is just a missing feature to automatically pull the current repository in to the chat context?

This sounds like a bug! It should "just work" without you manually inputting it. I'll look into this!