Added

• Add --reasoning-effort CLI flag to set reasoning effort level
• Hooks can now request user confirmation before tool execution with 'ask' permission decision
• Add configure-copilot sub-agent for managing MCP servers, custom agents, and skills via the task tool

Improved

• Faster shell commands on Windows by skipping PowerShell profile loading
• Improve CLI help documentation to use standard --option=value format and comma-separated list syntax

Fixed

• Interactive shell initialization no longer times out on slow machines

2026-03-09

• Enable alternate screen buffer by default for staff users
• Extensions are now available as an experimental feature — ask Copilot to write custom tools and hooks for itself using @github/copilot-sdk
• Document GH_HOST, HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY, NO_COLOR, and NO_PROXY environment variables in help
• Read MCP server configuration from .devcontainer/devcontainer.json
• Add --binary-version flag to query the CLI binary version without launching
• Add /restart command to hot restart the CLI while preserving your session
• Background task notifications display in timeline with expandable detail
• Type 'quit' to exit the CLI, in addition to 'exit'
• Add extraKnownMarketplaces repository setting to replace marketplaces
• Add Windows Terminal support to /terminal-setup command
• /reset-allowed-tools now fully undoes /allow-all and re-triggers the autopilot permission dialog
• Improved handling of batched queries in the SQL tool
• Login flow no longer hangs on Ubuntu when system keyring is unresponsive
• Terminal is properly reset when CLI crashes unexpectedly
• Table disables borders in screen reader mode to prevent announcing decorative characters
• MCP servers with non-conforming outputSchema are now accessible
• /plugin update now works for GitHub-installed plugins
• /add-dir directories persist across session changes like /clear and /resume
• Prevent env command from being treated as safe to allow without approval
• Placeholder text color displays correctly when wrapping in narrow terminals
• /plugin update now works with marketplaces defined in project settings
• Retry status messages now display to show progress during server error recovery
• Show loading spinner in diff mode while fetching changes
• Suppress /init suggestion when .github/instructions/ contains instructions
• Rename merge_strategy config to mergeStrategy for consistency
• Suppress unknown field warnings in skill and command frontmatter
• Trust safe sed commands to run without confirmation

New

• Extensions are now available as an experimental feature — ask Copilot to write custom tools and hooks for itself using @github/copilot-sdk

Added

• Document GH_HOST, HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY, NO_COLOR, and NO_PROXY environment variables in help
• Read MCP server configuration from .devcontainer/devcontainer.json
• Add --binary-version flag to query the CLI binary version without launching
• Add /restart command to hot restart the CLI while preserving your session
• Background task notifications display in timeline with expandable detail
• Type 'quit' to exit the CLI, in addition to 'exit'
• Add extraKnownMarketplaces repository setting to replace marketplaces
• Add Windows Terminal support to /terminal-setup command

Improved

• Retry status messages now display to show progress during server error recovery
• Show loading spinner in diff mode while fetching changes
• Suppress /init suggestion when .github/instructions/ contains instructions
• Rename merge_strategy config to mergeStrategy for consistency
• Suppress unknown field warnings in skill and command frontmatter
• Trust safe sed commands to run without confirmation

Fixed

• /reset-allowed-tools now fully undoes /allow-all and re-triggers the autopilot permission dialog
• Improved handling of batched queries in the SQL tool
• Login flow no longer hangs on Ubuntu when system keyring is unresponsive
• Terminal is properly reset when CLI crashes unexpectedly
• Table disables borders in screen reader mode to prevent announcing decorative characters
• MCP servers with non-conforming outputSchema are now accessible
• /plugin update now works for GitHub-installed plugins
• /add-dir directories persist across session changes like /clear and /resume
• Prevent env command from being treated as safe to allow without approval
• Placeholder text color displays correctly when wrapping in narrow terminals
• /plugin update now works with marketplaces defined in project settings

New

• Extensions are now available as an experimental feature — ask Copilot to write custom tools and hooks for itself using @github/copilot-sdk

Added

• Document GH_HOST, HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY, NO_COLOR, and NO_PROXY environment variables in help
• Read MCP server configuration from .devcontainer/devcontainer.json
• Add --binary-version flag to query the CLI binary version without launching
• Background task notifications display in timeline with expandable detail
• Type 'quit' to exit the CLI, in addition to 'exit'
• Add Windows Terminal support to /terminal-setup command

Improved

• Retry status messages now display to show progress during server error recovery
• Show loading spinner in diff mode while fetching changes
• Suppress unknown field warnings in skill and command frontmatter

Fixed

• /reset-allowed-tools now fully undoes /allow-all and re-triggers the autopilot permission dialog
• Login flow no longer hangs on Ubuntu when system keyring is unresponsive
• Terminal is properly reset when CLI crashes unexpectedly
• Table disables borders in screen reader mode to prevent announcing decorative characters
• MCP servers with non-conforming outputSchema are now accessible
• /plugin update now works for GitHub-installed plugins
• /add-dir directories persist across session changes like /clear and /resume
• Prevent env command from being treated as safe to allow without approval
• /plugin update now works with marketplaces defined in project settings

Added

• Document GH_HOST, HTTP_PROXY, HTTPS_PROXY, NO_COLOR, and NO_PROXY environment variables in help
• Add --binary-version flag to query the CLI binary version without launching
• Background task notifications display in timeline with expandable detail
• Type 'quit' to exit the CLI, in addition to 'exit'
• Add Windows Terminal support to /terminal-setup command

Improved

• Retry status messages now display to show progress during server error recovery
• Show loading spinner in diff mode while fetching changes
• Suppress unknown field warnings in skill and command frontmatter

Fixed

• /reset-allowed-tools now fully undoes /allow-all and re-triggers the autopilot permission dialog
• Login flow no longer hangs on Ubuntu when system keyring is unresponsive
• Terminal is properly reset when CLI crashes unexpectedly
• Table disables borders in screen reader mode to prevent announcing decorative characters
• MCP servers with non-conforming outputSchema are now accessible
• /plugin update now works for GitHub-installed plugins
• /add-dir directories persist across session changes like /clear and /resume
• Prevent env command from being treated as safe to allow without approval
• /plugin update now works with marketplaces defined in project settings

2026-03-06

To commemorate GitHub Copilot CLI reaching general availability last week, we're incrementing the major version to 1.0!

• Type 'exit' as a bare command to close the CLI
• Ask_user form now submits with Enter key and allows custom responses in enum fields
• Support 'command' field as cross-platform alias for bash/powershell in hook configs
• Hook configurations now accept timeout as alias for timeoutSec
• Fix handling of meta with control keys (including shift+enter from /terminal-setup)

2026-03-06

• Users are prompted for shell commands with potentially dangerous expansion or substitution use cases, additional guardrails for malicious exploits
• Block /share gist for EMU and GHE Cloud users with clear error messaging
• Elicitation enum and boolean fields now require Enter to confirm a selection, with a ✓ indicator for confirmed values vs ❯ for the browsing cursor
• MCP servers can now request users to visit a URL for out-of-band interactions such as OAuth flows or API key entry
• Improve explore agent precision and large repository support with better context sharing
• Diff mode displays cleanly on Windows with CRLF line endings

2026-03-05

• Display request ID in authentication and authorization error messages to aid troubleshooting
• Load personal hooks from ~/.copilot/hooks in addition to repo-level .github/hooks
• Timeline now shows the question in a box and displays 'Making best guess on autopilot' when ask_user is auto-responded
• Add support for GPT-5.4 model
• Plugin cache automatically recovers from a corrupted or incomplete clone without manual intervention
• Show a clear, actionable error message when git is not installed and a remote plugin or marketplace is used
• Text selection persists after copying to clipboard in alt screen
• Scroll view no longer jumps to earlier messages when scrolling during response streaming or with popups open
• Add copy_on_select config option to auto-copy selected text to clipboard in alt screen mode
• IME candidate windows appear at correct cursor position in CJK input
• Add mouse scroll support to /diff in alt-screen mode
• Reduce memory usage in alt-screen mode for long sessions
• Diff mode now works correctly when git color.diff=always is configured
• Opening links on Windows correctly handles URLs with & query parameters
• @-mention file completion always reflects the current state of the working directory
• ESC key to cancel works correctly in tmux and other non-kitty terminals
• Click in the prompt input to reposition the text cursor
• Add /copy command to copy the last response to clipboard
• Links in alt-screen mode are rendered with underline styling for better visibility
• /delegate prompts for a target remote in multi-remote repositories and clarifies confirmation text
• GitHub MCP server stays enabled in repositories that have both Azure DevOps and GitHub remotes
• Colons in inline code render correctly inside markdown tables
• Pressing Ctrl+C on the help dialog now dismisses it cleanly
• Plugin-contributed LSP servers are now loaded, started, and shown in /lsp show
• Pressing Enter in required enum field now selects the highlighted option
• Hide noisy todo bookkeeping queries and show dependency details in timeline
• CLI no longer hangs for minutes when working in a directory with a large number of files
• Add --output-format json flag to emit JSONL in prompt mode for programmatic integrations
• Add exitPlanMode.request protocol method for SDK plan approval support
• Automatic notifications when background shell commands and agents complete
• GitHub MCP server connection status is accurately tracked and counted in the status indicator
• Press Ctrl+R to search command history with reverse incremental search (like Bash)
• Long diff lines no longer overflow and wrap in the diff view
• Add startup prompt hooks to auto-submit prompts or slash commands when a session starts
• Ctrl+K joins lines when cursor is at end of line, matching standard Emacs/terminal behavior
• Escape sequences split across input chunks no longer leak into text input
• Rename launch_messages config setting to companyAnnouncements
• Show a waiting message when the terminal is handed to an external editor
• Support enabledPlugins in config for automatic plugin installation at startup
• Improve key bindings in reverse history search: Ctrl+J to accept, Ctrl+G to cancel
• Rename repository config from .github/copilot/config.json to settings.json
• Support installing plugins from ssh:// URLs
• Session usage metrics (requests, tokens, code changes) are now persisted to events.jsonl after each session ends

Added

• Load personal hooks from ~/.copilot/hooks in addition to repo-level .github/hooks
• Add copy_on_select config option to auto-copy selected text to clipboard in alt screen mode
• Add exitPlanMode.request protocol method for SDK plan approval support
• Automatic notifications when background shell commands and agents complete
• Press Ctrl+R to search command history with reverse incremental search (like Bash)
• Add startup prompt hooks to auto-submit prompts or slash commands when a session starts
• Support enabledPlugins in config for automatic plugin installation at startup
• Support installing plugins from ssh:// URLs
• Session usage metrics (requests, tokens, code changes) are now persisted to events.jsonl after each session ends

Improved

• Show a clear, actionable error message when git is not installed and a remote plugin or marketplace is used
• Text selection persists after copying to clipboard in alt screen
• Reduce memory usage in alt-screen mode for long sessions
• @-mention file completion always reflects the current state of the working directory
• Links in alt-screen mode are rendered with underline styling for better visibility
• /delegate prompts for a target remote in multi-remote repositories and clarifies confirmation text
• Hide noisy todo bookkeeping queries and show dependency details in timeline
• Rename launch_messages config setting to companyAnnouncements
• Show a waiting message when the terminal is handed to an external editor
• Rename repository config from .github/copilot/config.json to settings.json

Fixed

• Plugin cache automatically recovers from a corrupted or incomplete clone without manual intervention
• IME candidate windows appear at correct cursor position in CJK input
• Opening links on Windows correctly handles URLs with & query parameters
• ESC key to cancel works correctly in tmux and other non-kitty terminals
• GitHub MCP server stays enabled in repositories that have both Azure DevOps and GitHub remotes
• Colons in inline code render correctly inside markdown tables
• Plugin-contributed LSP servers are now loaded, started, and shown in /lsp show
• Pressing Enter in required enum field now selects the highlighted option
• CLI no longer hangs for minutes when working in a directory with a large number of files
• GitHub MCP server connection status is accurately tracked and counted in the status indicator
• Ctrl+K joins lines when cursor is at end of line, matching standard Emacs/terminal behavior
• Escape sequences split across input chunks no longer leak into text input

Added

• Load personal hooks from ~/.copilot/hooks in addition to repo-level .github/hooks
• Support enabledPlugins in config for automatic plugin installation at startup
• Session usage metrics (requests, tokens, code changes) are now persisted to events.jsonl after each session ends

Improved

• Show a clear, actionable error message when git is not installed and a remote plugin or marketplace is used
• Links in alt-screen mode are rendered with underline styling for better visibility
• /delegate prompts for a target remote in multi-remote repositories and clarifies confirmation text
• Hide noisy todo bookkeeping queries and show dependency details in timeline
• Rename launch_messages config setting to companyAnnouncements
• Show a waiting message when the terminal is handed to an external editor
• Rename repository config from .github/copilot/config.json to settings.json

Fixed

• Plugin cache automatically recovers from a corrupted or incomplete clone without manual intervention
• Opening links on Windows correctly handles URLs with & query parameters
• Colons in inline code render correctly inside markdown tables
• Ctrl+K joins lines when cursor is at end of line, matching standard Emacs/terminal behavior