copilot-cli-guide

A quick reference for GitHub Copilot CLI, GitHub's terminal-based AI coding agent. It explains installation, slash commands, keyboard shortcuts, operating modes, context handling, and session controls.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to install and launch Copilot CLI, include files or GitHub issues in context, run commands, switch modes, manage sessions, and use keyboard shortcuts.
Why use it?
It saves time when you need to know how a Copilot CLI command or interaction works without searching through general documentation.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/trsdn/github-copilot-cli/copilot-cli-guide
Any agent
npx skills add trsdn/github-copilot-cli --skill copilot-cli-guide
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/trsdn/github-copilot-cli

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 45 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,340 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan C 2 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00045 $0.03340
Opus 5 $0.00023 $0.01670
Sonnet 5 $0.00009 $0.00668
Haiku 4.5 $0.00005 $0.00334

Measured yesterday against content hash afad2d531172, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade C, and why

copilot-cli-guide scanned grade C with 2 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Downloads and executes remote codehighSupply chain

curl | sh runs whatever the server returns today, which is not necessarily what it returned when this was reviewed.

curl -fsSL https://gh.io/copilot-install | bash

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

curl -fsSL https://gh.io/copilot-install | bash
.github/skills/copilot-cli-guide/SKILL.md · 379 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 379 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Copilot CLI Guide

Quick reference for GitHub Copilot CLI — the terminal-native AI coding agent.

When to use this skill

  • User asks about Copilot CLI features or capabilities
  • User needs help with slash commands or keyboard shortcuts
  • User wants to understand modes (interactive, plan, autopilot)
  • User asks about context management or session handling

Getting Started

# Install (macOS/Linux)
curl -fsSL https://gh.io/copilot-install | bash

# Install (Homebrew)
brew install copilot-cli

# Install (npm, cross-platform)
npm install -g @github/copilot

# Install (Windows)
winget install GitHub.Copilot

# Launch
copilot

Keyboard Shortcuts

Global

Shortcut Action
@ Mention files, include contents in context
# Include a GitHub issue or pull request in context
! Execute shell command directly (bypass Copilot)
? Open quick help on an empty prompt
Esc Cancel current operation
Ctrl+C Cancel operation / clear input; press twice to exit
Ctrl+D Shutdown
Ctrl+Enter / Ctrl+Q Queue a message while the agent is busy
Ctrl+G Edit prompt in external editor
Ctrl+L Clear the screen
Ctrl+R Reverse search command history
Ctrl+V Paste from clipboard as an attachment
Ctrl+X then / Run a slash command after typing a prompt
Ctrl+X then e Edit the prompt in an external editor
Ctrl+X then o Open the most recent link from the timeline
Shift+Enter / Option+Enter Insert a newline in the input
Shift+Tab Cycle modes (standard → plan → autopilot)

Timeline

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+T Expand/collapse reasoning display
Ctrl+O Expand recent timeline items when prompt is empty
Ctrl+E Expand all timeline items when prompt is empty
Page Up / Page Down Scroll the timeline

Editing

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+A Move to beginning of line
Ctrl+E Move to end of line
Ctrl+H Delete previous character
Ctrl+W Delete previous word
Ctrl+U Delete from cursor to beginning of line
Ctrl+K Delete from cursor to end of line
Alt+← / Alt+→ Move cursor by word on Windows/Linux
Option+← / Option+→ Move cursor by word on macOS
/ Navigate command history
Tab / Ctrl+Y Accept inline completion suggestion

Read the full file on GitHub · 379 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday First seen · 379 lines · 45 tokens per session scan C afad2d531172

Subscribe to this mod's changes

copilot-cli-guide is a skill published in the GitHub repository trsdn/github-copilot-cli (1 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 45 tokens to every session and 3,340 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it C with 2 findings (downloads and executes remote code, makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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