What is GitHub Copilot?

In the first part of the book, we are going to take a broad look at what GitHub Copilot is, what kind of features you can expect, and where the integration points with the GitHub platform are. You’ll see that GitHub has thoughtfully added features in the places of the software development lifecycle where it makes sense for engineers: from integration into the editor all the way to right into the interfaces on github.com.

To get a good grasp of the underlying technology that powers GitHub Copilot, we will also take a look at what generative AI is, its basic features, as well as where it strengths and weaknesses are. This forms the foundation of having the right expectations of the power of GitHub Copilot and how important having access to the right context for your conversations is.

We will close this part by showing the different ways to get access to GitHub Copilot, from the subscriptions tailored for individual users all the way to GitHub Copilot in a professional business setting.

This part of the book includes the following chapters:

• Chapter 1, GitHub Copilot Explained
• Chapter 2, Getting Started with Generative AI
• Chapter 3, Choosing the Right GitHub Copilot Plan