Microsoft has introduced that Visible Studio now helps code referencing for GitHub Copilot completions.
Code referencing allows builders to confirm if the solutions coming from Copilot are based mostly on public code, which might probably result in open-source licensing points relying on what the developer is utilizing the code for.
“By integrating code referencing into GitHub Copilot, we’re fostering a tradition of information sharing and transparency. This characteristic not solely empowers particular person builders but additionally helps bigger groups in navigating the complexities of public code with ease,” Simona Liao, product supervisor at Microsoft, wrote in a weblog put up.
When a developer accepts a suggestion that matches code present in a public GitHub repository, they are going to obtain a notification that shows the match, together with details about the license kind and a hyperlink to the GitHub repository it was present in.
The corporate famous that lower than 1% of Copilot completions (maybe larger if working in open-source repositories) match public code, so builders is not going to see code references for almost all of their accepted completions.
In accordance with Microsoft, code referencing solely runs on accepted solutions from Copilot, not on code a developer has written.
This characteristic was beforehand launched in Copilot Chat, and now it’s accessible throughout Visible Studio itself.
“This new performance gives builders larger transparency on their code completions (or “grey textual content”) by offering detailed data on any public code matches discovered. Previous to this alteration, Copilot completions with public code match have been mechanically blocked. Now, builders have the selection to entry extra code completions and obtain enough details about any public code matches, enabling them to make knowledgeable selections,” Liao wrote.
