GitHub launches free tier of Copilot AI coding assistant

GitHub has launched GitHub Copilot Free, providing access to a free tier of the AI-based pair programmer via Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code editor.

Announced December 18, Copilot Free gives developers access to 2,000 code completions and 50 chat messages monthly. The service requires signing in with a personal GitHub account or creating a new one. Developers may choose between Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet or OpenAI’s GPT-4o models. It’s possible to ask coding questions or find bugs, including searches across multiple files. Developers can also access Copilot third-party agents or build their own extensions.

Copilot Free is automatically integrated into VS Code. To access the free tier, VS Code users can press the Copilot icon at the top of the screen and click the “Sign in to use Copilot for Free” button. This opens a web browser where developers can sign in to GitHub and allow VS Code to connect to their account. VS Code will then automatically install GitHub Copilot. GitHub is launching Copilot Free in response to having passed 150 million developers on the GitHub platform.