Skip to content

[go] support bundling and auto installing the GitHub Copilot CLI #414

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Open
qmuntal wants to merge 3 commits into
base: main
Choose a base branch
from
+1,203 −1
Open

[go] support bundling and auto installing the GitHub Copilot CLI #414

Show file tree
Hide file tree
Changes from 1 commit
Commits
Show all changes
3 commits
Select commit Hold shift + click to select a range
3b043c9
support bundling and auto installing the GitHub Copilot CLI
qmuntal Feb 9, 2026
9fd038d
fix lint
qmuntal Feb 9, 2026
4587441
catch missing errors
qmuntal Feb 9, 2026
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
12 changes: 12 additions & 0 deletions go/README.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -69,6 +69,18 @@ func main() {
}
```

## Distributing your application with an embedded GitHub Copilot CLI

The SDK supports bundling, using Go's `embed` package, the Copilot CLI binary within your application's distribution.
This allows you to bundle a specific CLI version and avoid external dependencies on the user's system.

Follow these steps to embed the CLI:

1. Run `go get -tool github.com/github/copilot-sdk/go/cmd/bundler`. This is a one-time setup step per project.
2. Run `go tool bundler` in your build environment just before building your application.

That's it! When your application calls `copilot.NewClient` without a `CLIPath` nor the `COPILOT_CLI_PATH` environment variable, the SDK will automatically install the embedded CLI to a temporary directory and use it for all operations. Subsequent calls to `copilot.NewClient`, even from different processes, will reuse the same installed CLI binary.

## API Reference

### Client
Expand Down
4 changes: 4 additions & 0 deletions go/client.go
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -42,6 +42,7 @@ import (
"sync"
"time"

"github.com/github/copilot-sdk/go/internal/embeddedcli"
"github.com/github/copilot-sdk/go/internal/jsonrpc2"
)

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -182,6 +183,9 @@ func NewClient(options *ClientOptions) *Client {
// Check environment variable for CLI path
if cliPath := os.Getenv("COPILOT_CLI_PATH"); cliPath != "" {
opts.CLIPath = cliPath
} else if embeddedPath := embeddedcli.Path(); embeddedPath != "" && opts.CLIPath == "copilot" {
// Use the unpacked embedded CLI if available and no custom path was set
opts.CLIPath = embeddedPath
Comment on lines 183 to +188
Copy link

Copilot AI Feb 9, 2026

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

embeddedcli.Path() is evaluated even when CLIUrl is set (external server mode). In that case the client won’t spawn a local CLI process, so this can trigger an unnecessary embedded CLI install/unpack. Consider guarding this branch with !client.isExternalServer (or opts.CLIUrl == "") so embedded installation only happens when CLIPath will actually be used.

Copilot uses AI. Check for mistakes.
}

client.options = opts
Expand Down
Loading
Loading