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Copilot4Eclipse FAQ

General​

What is Copilot4Eclipse?

Copilot4Eclipse is an Eclipse IDE plugin created by Genuitec that integrates GitHub Copilot AI coding features and services seamlessly within the Eclipse IDE. Key features include smart real-time generation of inline code suggestions and Chat conversations about your codebase.

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Copilot4Eclipse users must acquire a GitHub Copilot subscription for its operation.

Is Copilot4Eclipse Free?

Yes, Copilot4Eclipse is free to use within the terms and conditions set forth by the standard Copilot4Eclipse End User License and the GitHub Copilot Terms of Service for your subscription type. In some cases you may need a corporate use license.

Learn more about Copilot4Eclipse licensing options.

Does installing Copilot4Eclipse automatically provide me access to GitHub Copilot Features and Services?

No. You will need to acquire a GitHub Copilot subscription (individual, business, or enterprise) from GitHub, Inc. for Copilot4Eclipse to operate on your behalf.

Where do I learn more about GitHub Copilot Subscriptions?

Learn about the type of GitHub Copilot subscriptions, terms and conditions:

About GitHub Copilot Individual subscription

About GitHub Copilot Business subscription

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This FAQ is neither a comprehensive nor an authoritative resource for GitHub Copilot Subscriptions. The preceding links are commonly available online resources that may be updated without our knowledge. You are responsible for staying current with any changes that GitHub may apply to the terms and conditions of your GitHub Copilot Subscription.

How do I get help if I have a problem?

Genuitec offers 2 levels of technical support for Copilot4Eclipse: Free and Priority.

Free Support Level

The Free Level of support is provided by Genutiec's technical staff on an as-available basis. While we will do our best to assist you as quickly as possible we do not guarantee a response timeframe or priority level of attention.

Priority Support Level

Priority support is provided by our expert technical staff and development team as part of a corporate license agreement. It includes priority attention with rapid response time and other timely and useful capabilities.

To get started visit our Getting Help guide.

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Questions about GitHub Copilot subscriptions, service uptimes and outages, and the internal workings of AI generated code completions and Chat conversations are generally outside the scope of support.

What personal data does Copilot4Eclipse collect and how is it used?

Data Transmission
Copilot4Eclipse passes all user data (e.g., source code, filenames, chat prompts and file context) except user preferences directly to GitHub Copilot where it is managed according to the user’s GitHub Copilot subscription type: individual subscription or business subscription. No user data is communicated from Copilot4Eclipse to any Genuitec computer or any 3rd party computer.

Data Analysis and Interpretation
Copilot4Eclipse does not directly analyze any user data beyond the Copilot4Eclipse user preferences.

Data Persistence and Storage
Copilot4Eclipse stores user preferences and Chat conversations on the user's local computer in subfolders of the current Eclipse workspace folder, see the Copilot4Eclipse FAQ for a details of the data stored locally. User preferences consist of user-created parameters that are used by Copilot4Eclipse to customizing its user experience for the user. Chat conversations consist of the user prompts, (e.g., questions, instructions, commands), and GitHub Copilot responses for each prompt. Conversations are stored in a single Exodus database file and persists until the user deletes them individually or collectively.

User preference data consists of the following:

    Automatically show inline completions: (boolean, default: true)
    Strict SSL certificate checking for proxy connections: (boolean: default: true)
    Poll for GitHub Copilot status changes: (boolean, default: true)
    Completion text color: (RGB string, default:”128,128,128”)
    Disabled Copilot Language Identifiers: (String array, default: “abap,bibtex,c,csharp,cpp,clojure,coffee,dart,diff,elixir,erlang,fsharp,fortran,go,groovy,haml,handlebars,haskell,ini,kotlin,lisp,latex,less,lua,makefile,markdown,matlab,php,perl,plaintext,powershell,pug,r,razor,ruby,rust,scala,shaderlab,shellscript,stylus,swift,vb,bat,xsl”)

Conversation data consists of the following:

    Conversation name or title
    User prompts (text)
    GitHub Copilot Chat responses (text)
    Filenames that make up the query context
Is Copilot4Eclipse endorsed or supported by GitHub in any way?

No, Copilot4Eclipse has been developed independently from GitHub, Inc. and is the sole product of Genuitec, LLC. GitHub, Inc. has no responsibility or liability for or in connection with Copilot4Eclipse.

Where can I share a feature request or give feedback?

We welcome constructive feedback and new feature ideas. Please post feedback messages to the Copilot4Eclipse Online Discussion Forum.

Is Copilot4Eclipse Open-Source?

Copilot4Eclipse is a free to use Eclipse plugin that is closed source.

Features & Operations​

Does Copilot4Eclipse provide AI generated code completions?

Yes, Copilot4Eclipse provides inline AI generated code completion text provided by GitHub Copilot.

Copilot4Eclipse recognizes the following language identifiers: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/languages/identifiers

The quality of the GitHub Copilot generated code completions is dependent upon the popularity of the target programming language you are working with. Copilot4Eclipse will not request completions from GitHub Copilot for any Eclipse editor for which its programming language is not recognized.

Does Copilot4Eclipse provide Open-AI ChatGPT features?

Yes, Chat features were introduced in the Copilot4Eclipse 1.2.0 udpate. To access these features open the Chat Panel from the Copilot4Eclipse menu.

What is the meaning of the text (e.g., 1:3) that sometimes appears to the right of the Copilot4Eclipse status bar menu?

The text that appears to the right of the Copilot4Eclipse image on the Eclipse status bar indicates the following:

  • No text implies that the Copilot is disabled for the current Editor
  • * implies that Copilot is enabled for the current Editor and no completions are available at the moment
  • M:N indicates that Copilot is enabled for the current Editor and that multiple completions are available for consideration. M is the index of the currently displayed completion. N indicates the total number of completions available.
How do I identify when Copilot is active within my Eclipse editor?

There are 2 ways to identify if Copilot is active within your Eclipse editor. The first approach is by using the status bar as described above. The second method is to open the Copilot4 menu and look for an action similar to Disable completions for <language>. The presence of this action indicates that Copilot is active in your editor. The presence of an action similar to Enable completions for <language> indicates that Copilot is currently inactive in the current editor.

How do I identify when multiple code completions are available for a specific editor context?

The number of completions available for consideration are visible from the status bar as described above.

You can cycle through multiple completions using the Copilot menu Next Completion and Previous Completion actions. Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcuts Alt+] for next completion and Alt+[ for the previous completion.

Licensing​

Where can I find the Copilot4Eclipse End User License Agreement (EULA)?

You can find the Copilot EULA online here.

Corporate License​

Does my company need a corporate license to use Copilot4Eclipse?

Maybe. It depends on how you install and distribute Copilot4Eclipse and what level of support you want.

Let’s look at the “No you don’t” cases first. Any individual may use Copilot4Eclipse free of charge for any legal purpose, as is stated in the EULA. Here are some examples:

  • You’re an individual developer and you install Copilot4Eclipse directly from the Eclipse Marketplace for your use.
  • You’re a developer that works for a corporation and you install Copilot4Eclipse directly from the Eclipse Marketplace for your use.
  • You have a company that employs developers. Each of these developers individually installs Copilot4Eclipse directly from the Eclipse Marketplace for their use on your company’s products or to consult with your company’s customers.

In any of these cases, no corporate license is required.

So when is a corporate license required?

The Copilot4Eclipse EULA expressly prohibits bundling, distribution, hosting or any type of transfer of the software. If your company does any of these things for the employees of your company or its affiliates then a corporate license is required.

Here are some examples:

  • Your company does not allow developers to access the Eclipse Marketplace to directly install Copilot4Eclipse.
  • You have an internal plug-in marketplace and want it to include Copilot4Eclipse within it.
  • You want to create your own update site or plug-in archive of Copilot4Eclipse in any way.
  • You want to create your own tool stack that includes Copilot4Eclipse and distribute it in any way.
  • You have a Software Management Service (SMS) that handles installs and you want to include Copilot4Eclipse to be managed in any way.

In any of these cases, a corporate license is required.

Please send an email to info@genuitec.com for additional information.

Are there any cases where a corporate license isn’t required but I might want one anyway?

Yes, if you want a much higher level of support along with visibility and input on the future direction of the product. To find out more about what is included in the corporate license, please send an email to info@genuitec.com for additional information

Trouble Shooting​

Where can I find firewall or proxy server settings for Copilot4Eclipse?

Copilot4Eclipse uses GitHub Copilot REST APIs to provide AI code generation and chat services. When operating on a secure organizational network behind a firewall or proxy server you may need to explicitly configure the GitHub Copilot URLs and domains as trusted internet resources.

Learn more about firewall settings.

Installation Error: “PKIX path building failed…”

If during the Copilot4Eclipse installation process you encounter an error with a message similar to “PKIX path building failed…” please see this Technical Note for a possible solution.