title: "FAQ" description: "Frequently asked questions about GitHub Copilot in VS Code" section: "Copilot" readTime: "5 min"

Frequently Asked Questions

Subscriptions

How do I get Copilot?

Individual: Sign up for Copilot Free (monthly limits) or a paid plan at github.com/settings/copilot
Org/Enterprise member: Go to github.com/settings/copilot and request access under "Get Copilot from an organization"

What does a paid plan add?

Higher monthly limits for chat and suggestions
Access to premium language models
Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) for additional models
Remote repository indexing and semantic code search
Copilot code review
Content exclusions
Cloud agents (delegate GitHub issues)

How do I monitor usage? Click the Copilot icon in the Status Bar to open the Copilot status dashboard. It shows inline suggestions, chat messages, and premium requests usage as a percentage of your monthly quota.

I reached my limit — what now? Limits reset monthly. Inline suggestions and chat have separate limits. On the Free plan, upgrade or wait for the next monthly reset. On paid plans, you can request additional premium requests.

My subscription is not detected:

Sign out (Accounts menu) and sign in with the correct GitHub account
Verify subscription is active at github.com/settings/copilot
GHE.com managed accounts: follow GHE.com account setup docs

General Usage

How do I remove Copilot from VS Code? Set chat.disableAIFeatures to disable all AI features and hide them from the UI. This can be workspace-scoped.

Network/firewall issues: Add Copilot domains to your allowlist. On corporate VPNs or proxies, see the GitHub Copilot firewall troubleshooting docs.

I am being rate-limited: GitHub uses rate limits for fair access. Check the rate limit docs.

Are there pre-release builds? Yes. Extensions view → right-click Copilot extension → Switch to Pre-Release Version.

Chat & Agents

Agents not available? Verify chat.agent.enabled is true. If it is organization-managed, contact your admin.

What can agents do? Agents handle complete coding tasks autonomously: multi-file changes, terminal commands, tool invocations, self-correction on errors. Use for features, refactoring, migrations, debugging, test generation.

Does Copilot work with large codebases? Yes. VS Code indexes your workspace with semantic search and language intelligence. Enable remote indexing for large GitHub repos. Use multi-root workspaces for monorepos.

Not all models appear in the picker? Organizations can restrict models. You can also customize which models appear in language model settings. Contact your admin if a model should be available.

How do I stop the Chat view opening automatically? Chat view ... menu → toggle Show View by Default. Or set workbench.secondarySideBar.defaultVisibility to hidden.

Organization Admin Controls

Enable/disable agents and specific features via enterprise AI settings
Restrict model access and enforce content exclusions
Manage telemetry at the organization level
See GitHub Copilot Trust Center for compliance details