Copilot and Neovim

Although I’ve occasionally used Github Copilot on VS Code, I never really got into using it inside neovim, which is my main editor. I had tried setting it up using Github’s copilot.vim plugin, but I never got it working with my setup.

Today I came across copilot-cmp, which allows loading Copilot suggestions as snippets in the completion menu provided by the nvim-cmp completion engine. This plugin depends on copilot.lua, a Lua rewrite of copilot.vim that plays well with neovim.

Setup

Add it to lazy.nvim config:

local plugins = {
  -- other plugins

  {
    "zbirenbaum/copilot-cmp",
    event = "InsertEnter",
    config = function () require("copilot_cmp").setup() end,
    dependencies = {
      "zbirenbaum/copilot.lua",
      cmd = "Copilot",
      config = function()
        require("copilot").setup({
          suggestion = { enabled = false },
          panel = { enabled = false },
        })
      end,
    },
  },
}

Add it to nvim-cmp setup:

require("cmp").setup {
  -- other setup
  sources = {
    { name = "copilot" },
    { name = "nvim_lsp" },
    { name = "luasnip" },
    -- other sources
  },
}

(Here’s the commit where I added this to my config.)

Finally run :Copilot auth in the command line to sign into copilot and get started.

Copilot impressions

A few months ago, I tried using Copilot for a full day in VS Code. Back then, I hated it. I found the virtual text appearing on the screen to be quite distracting.

With nvim-cmp, the suggestions don’t show up until I tab into the completion menu, so it’s easier to ignore them when I don’t need them. I might actually end up using Copilot more often this way, and maybe even enjoy using it.