{"id":252167,"date":"2025-02-20T10:00:52","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T18:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/?p=252167"},"modified":"2025-02-25T07:27:36","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T15:27:36","slug":"function-calling-is-now-enabled-in-github-copilot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/function-calling-is-now-enabled-in-github-copilot\/","title":{"rendered":"Unlocking More Power: Tool Calling in GitHub Copilot for Visual Studio"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Have you ever been frustrated when Copilot doesn\u2019t understand you? While it can\u2019t read your mind, we\u2019ve been working hard to make your coding experience smoother.<\/p>\n<p>Previously, Copilot in Visual Studio could look at files in your repository, but you needed to specify the context of your code manually. We understand this wasn\u2019t the most intuitive experience, so we\u2019ve been working on a smarter way to infer information automatically.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Introducing Tool Calling: A Smarter Copilot<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Tool Calling is here\u2014a major update that changes how you interact with Copilot. Now, Copilot can automatically search for more relevant code or tools it needs to address your questions. This works with GPT-4o and Claude Sonnet.<\/p>\n<p>You can now simply describe what you need in natural language, and Copilot can decide what of the information below is relevant:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Your current file<\/li>\n<li>Open files or related files in your solution<\/li>\n<li>Your whole codebase<\/li>\n<li>debugger (locals, call stacks, etc.)<\/li>\n<li>or Visual Studio itself<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Web integration is also coming soon, allowing you to ask questions that span both local code and external data sources. (But for now you can use @GitHub.)<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Function calling in GitHub Copilot\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hALZoDdY8-w?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>And that\u2019s not all we added\u2026.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Smarter Knowledge Retrieval<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h4><strong>Even more transparency and control<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>While Tool Calling is a significant improvement, it\u2019s not perfect. To tweak any missteps, try the Retry button to generate a fresh response. You can also manually specify files, methods, classes, or entire solutions using # references in your prompts.<\/p>\n<h4><strong>Help Shape the Future<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Tool Calling enables both enhanced context retrieval and greater workflow automation. Please update to the latest version of Visual Studio to access upcoming features. We also invite you to try Chat again and share your feedback\u2014let us know what works, what doesn\u2019t, and how we can improve your experience.<\/p>\n<p>Happy coding!<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2>Want to try this out?<\/h2>\n<p>Activate GitHub Copilot Free and unlock this AI feature, plus many more.<\/p>\n<p>No trials. No credit cards. Just your GitHub account. <a href=\"https:\/\/learn.microsoft.com\/en-us\/visualstudio\/ide\/copilot-free-plan?view=vs-2022#get-started-with-copilot-free-in-visual-studio\">Get Copilot Free<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you ever been frustrated when Copilot doesn\u2019t understand you? While it can\u2019t read your mind, we\u2019ve been working hard to make your coding experience smoother. Previously, Copilot in Visual Studio could look at files in your repository, but you needed to specify the context of your code manually. We understand this wasn\u2019t the most [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142353,"featured_media":252208,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6888,6967,155],"tags":[6959,6883,6924,6975],"class_list":["post-252167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-copilot","category-github-copilot","category-visual-studio","tag-context","tag-copilot","tag-github-copilot","tag-models"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"<p>Have you ever been frustrated when Copilot doesn\u2019t understand you? While it can\u2019t read your mind, we\u2019ve been working hard to make your coding experience smoother. Previously, Copilot in Visual Studio could look at files in your repository, but you needed to specify the context of your code manually. We understand this wasn\u2019t the most [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/142353"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/visualstudio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}