Browsing issues, pull requests, and gists from GitHub Copilot CLI

By default, interactive Copilot CLI sessions for Git repositories have four tabs at the top of the screen:

• Session: The regular chat experience where you enter prompts for Copilot.
• Issues: Open issues in the current repository on GitHub.
• Pull requests: Open pull requests in the current repository on GitHub.
• Gists: Your gists on GitHub.

The Issues, Pull requests, and Gists tabs let you browse content from GitHub.com without having to switch to a browser. This is useful when you want to:

• Find an issue or pull request to work on.
• Pull an item into your chat — quickly insert a reference to the selected item into the prompt box so that you can ask Copilot to investigate, fix, comment on, or review it.
• Jump to an item on GitHub.com — for example when you want to comment on an issue, merge a pull request, or edit a gist.

Switching between tabs

• Press Tab to move to the next tab.
• Press Shift+Tab to move to the previous tab.
• Use the mouse to click on a tab to switch to it.

Tab switching is paused while another part of the CLI—such as the slash command picker—is observing your keystrokes.

Common keyboard controls

The Issues, Pull requests, and Gists tabs all use the same controls. Regardless of which of these tabs you're on:

• Use the up and down arrow keys to highlight an item in the list.
• Use the left and right arrow keys to navigate between pages in a list.
• Press Enter to display a detailed view of the highlighted item. Press Esc in the details view to return to the list.
• Press o to open the highlighted item (or, in the detailed view, the current item) on GitHub.com.
• Press c to insert a reference to the item into the prompt input area and jump back to the Session tab.
• Press / (on the Issues and Pull requests tabs) to search GitHub with a custom query. Type a query, press Enter to run it, and Esc to cancel or clear it.

For the full set of keypresses you can use, see Keyboard reference at the end of this article.

Browsing issues

The Issues tab lists the open issues in the current repository that involve you—issues you authored, were assigned, were mentioned in, or commented on. Each row shows the issue title, the issue number, the author, and how long ago the issue was opened.

The GitHub search query used to populate the list is shown above it. Press a to toggle between showing only issues that involve you and showing every open issue in the repository.

Pressing c inserts a reference to the issue into the prompt box on the Session tab. You can then enter a prompt that relates to this issue. For example:

#1234 suggest a fix for this bug

Browsing pull requests

The Pull requests tab lists the open pull requests in the current repository that involve you—pull requests you authored, were assigned, were mentioned in, were asked to review, or commented on. Each row shows the pull request title, number, author, and how long ago the pull request was opened.

The GitHub search query used to populate the list is shown above it. Press a to toggle between showing only pull requests that involve you and showing every open pull request in the repository.

Pressing c inserts a reference to the pull request into the prompt box on the Session tab. You can then enter a prompt that relates to this pull request. For example:

#5678 check this out and run tests

Searching issues and pull requests

By default, the Issues and Pull requests tabs show items that involve you. Press a to toggle between this (involves:@me) and all open items.

To run your own search, press /. An inline search box opens where you can type a GitHub search query, then press Enter to run it.

Press Esc to cancel while typing, or to clear an applied search and return to the default list.

You can use the same set of search qualifiers that are available on GitHub.com. See Searching issues and pull requests.

Browsing your gists

The Gists tab lists the gists owned by the GitHub account you are signed in to. Both public and secret gists are shown. Unlike the Issues and Pull requests tabs, the Gists tab is not scoped to a repository—it is always available, regardless of where you started the CLI.

Pressing c inserts the gist's URL into the prompt box on the Session tab. You can then enter a prompt that relates to this gist. For example:

https://gist.github.com/USERNAME/GIST-ID summarize this

Modifying issues, pull requests, and gists

The Issues, Pull requests, and Gists tabs are read-only environments. There are two ways you can work on an item you find in one of these tabs:

• Press o to open it on GitHub.com and use the web UI to modify the item.

• Press c to drop a reference into the prompt box and ask Copilot to perform the activity for you. For example:

  #1234 add a comment: "Any update on this?"
  

  #5678 merge this
  

  https://gist.github.com/USERNAME/GIST-ID delete this
  

Customizing the tabs

You can reorder, hide, or turn off the tabs in your settings file (~/.copilot/settings.json) using the tabs object:

{
    "tabs": {
        "enabled": true,
        "sort": ["copilot", "pull-requests", "issues", "gists"],
        "hide": ["gists"]
    }
}

{
    "tabs": {
        "enabled": true,
        "sort": ["copilot", "pull-requests", "issues", "gists"],
        "hide": ["gists"]
    }
}

• enabled: set to false to turn off the tabbed interface entirely.
• sort: the order in which tabs appear. Use the identifiers copilot (the Session tab), issues, pull-requests, and gists. Any tabs you omit keep their default order after the ones you list. Unknown identifiers are ignored.
• hide: tabs to hide, using the same identifiers. The Session tab (copilot) cannot be hidden.

Keyboard reference

The footer hint bar in the Issues, Pull requests, and Gists tabs summarizes the available keys:

Further reading

• Managing pull requests with the /pr command
• GitHub Copilot CLI command reference