GitHub Copilot Edits, best recent Productivity Tool

If you’re a developer, you probably already know about GitHub Copilot—the AI-powered coding assistant that helps you write code faster. But let’s be real, until now, it had one major limitation: it could only work within a single file at a time. That meant if you wanted to make changes across multiple files, you had to do a lot of manual editing or switch back and forth between different files. Annoying, right?

Well, GitHub Copilot Edits just changed the game. 🔥

What Is GitHub Copilot Edits? Copilot Edits, launched in November 2024, takes AI-assisted coding to the next level. Instead of just giving you autocomplete suggestions or answering questions in a chat, it now directly edits multiple files based on natural language prompts. That means you can tell Copilot what you want, and it will make the changes across all relevant files without you having to do the legwork.

Think about it: instead of manually updating function names across multiple files or refactoring large chunks of code, you just tell Copilot what you want, and boom—it's done. That’s the kind of productivity boost developers dream about. 💡

Why This Is a Big Deal Before Copilot Edits, you could only interact with Copilot through a chat interface, and it could only look at one file at a time. Now, with Copilot Edits, you can define a Working Set of files, and Copilot will apply changes across all of them. Here’s why that’s huge:

✅ Multi-File Editing – No more manually updating code across different files.

✅ More Control – Choose which files Copilot should modify, so it doesn’t mess with stuff you don’t want touched.

✅ Natural Language Coding – Instead of manually coding refactors, just describe what you want in plain English.

✅ Faster Development – Less repetitive work means you can focus on actual problem-solving.

How It Works Using Copilot Edits is simple. Here’s how you can get started:

Select Your Files – You create a “Working Set” of files that Copilot will edit.

Give a Prompt – Tell Copilot what you need. Example: “Rename all instances of oldFunctionName to newFunctionName” or “Refactor this code to use async/await instead of callbacks.”

Review and Accept – Copilot will suggest edits. You can approve them or tweak as needed.

Undo If Necessary – If something looks off, you can easily undo changes and try again.

What This Means for Developers For devs working on large-scale applications, Copilot Edits is a lifesaver. Need to rename a function that’s used in 20 different places? Done in seconds. Want to update your codebase to follow a new pattern? No problem.

Even if you’re just starting out with coding, Copilot Edits makes it easier to work on real projects without getting stuck in the tedious parts of refactoring and code maintenance.

The Future of AI-Powered Coding This is just the beginning. AI-assisted coding is evolving fast, and tools like GitHub Copilot Edits are paving the way for more natural and intuitive programming experiences. The ability to communicate with AI in plain language and have it edit your entire project? That’s where things are headed.

If you haven’t tried GitHub Copilot Edits yet, give it a shot. It’s available in VS Code and Visual Studio 2022, and it’s going to change the way you write code.