GitHub debuts AI-powered Copilot X coding assistant

AI

Microsoft Corp.’s GitHub unit today debuted Copilot X, an artificial intelligence tool powered partly by GPT-4 that can help developers write code faster.

The tool is an enhanced version of the Copilot coding assistant that GitHub debuted in mid-2021. It offers an array of new features not included in the original. 

Copilot X will be embedded into the interface of Microsoft’s VS Code and Visual Studio code editing applications. According to GitHub, the two applications are receiving a new chat window into which developers can enter instructions for Copilot X. A developer could, for example, ask the tool to identify bugs in a snippet of code or have it generate new code from scratch.

The code editor integration will roll out alongside a feature called Copilot Voice. It will enable developers to interact with Copilot X using spoken instructions. The feature not only provides the ability to generate code but also supports other actions such jumping to a specific section of a program file. 

Another set of new AI features focuses on pull requests. A pull request is a document that a developer writes to explain new code for colleagues. Other developers can review the document, submit suggestions and approve the new code for release if all technical requirements are met. 

Copilot X uses OpenAI LP’s GPT-4 model to speed up the process of creating pull requests. The feature allows developers to enter a short snippet of text and have it automatically turned into a detailed description of their code. In the future, GitHub plans to roll out an enhanced version of the capability that works like an autocomplete tool and will be capable of generating multiple sentences at a time.

“We’re testing new capabilities internally where GitHub Copilot will automatically suggest sentences and paragraphs as developers create pull requests by dynamically pulling in information about code changes,” GitHub Chief Executive Officer Thomas Dohmke detailed in a blog post today. 

Once a pull request is created for new code, developers review it to determine whether the code has been properly tested for bugs. GitHub says Copilot X will help with that task as well.

According to the Microsoft unit, Copilot X can scan the code described in a pull request and determine whether it has been tested with sufficient thoroughness. If the tool finds room for improvement, it automatically generates the missing tests. GitHub says that software teams will have the ability to customize Copilot X’s suggestions based on their requirements. 

The other new features focus on two core aspects of software developers’ work: reading documentation and writing command line queries.

Software teams write technical documentation that explains how their code works. In some cases, that documentation can comprise hundreds of pages of text or more, which makes finding specific pieces of information difficult. Copilot X will enable users to enter questions about a piece of code into a chat window and have the answer retrieved automatically.

“We’re starting with documentation for React, Azure Docs, and MDN, so we can learn and iterate quickly with the developers and users of these projects,” Dohmke detailed in today’s blog post. “We’re also working to bring this functionality to any organization’s repositories and internal documentation.”

Another frequently recurring task in software projects is CLI scripting. The CLI, or command line interface, is a program that developers use to configure the servers on which their code runs and perform other maintenance tasks. Performing such tasks requires developers to write queries in a technically complex syntax.

Copilot X is aimed at simplifying the process. It will enable developers to enter natural language commands into the CLI instead of writing queries in the complicated default syntax. The result, according to GitHub, is that tasks such as configuring servers should take less time to complete. 

Image: GitHub