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Copilot CLI

GitHub Copilot CLI is GitHub's AI coding agent for the terminal. It can understand your codebase, make edits, run commands, and help you build software faster.

Open models can be used with Copilot CLI through Ollama, enabling you to use models such as qwen3.5, glm-5.3:cloud, kimi-k3:cloud See all supported models here.

Install

Install Copilot CLI:

macOS / Linux (Homebrew)npm (all platforms)macOS / Linux (script)Windows (WinGet)

brew install copilot-cli

Usage with Ollama

Quick setup

ollama launch copilot

Run directly with a model

ollama launch copilot --model kimi-k2.5:cloud

Non-interactive (headless) mode

Run Copilot CLI without interaction for use in Docker, CI/CD, or scripts:

ollama launch copilot --model kimi-k2.5:cloud --yes -- -p "how does this repository work?"

The --yes flag auto-pulls the model, skips selectors, and requires --model to be specified. Arguments after -- are passed directly to Copilot CLI.

Manual setup

Copilot CLI connects to Ollama using the OpenAI-compatible API via environment variables.

  1. Set the environment variables:
export COPILOT_PROVIDER_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434/v1
export COPILOT_PROVIDER_API_KEY=
export COPILOT_PROVIDER_WIRE_API=responses
export COPILOT_MODEL=qwen3.5
  1. Run Copilot CLI:
copilot

Or run with environment variables inline:

COPILOT_PROVIDER_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434/v1 COPILOT_PROVIDER_API_KEY= COPILOT_PROVIDER_WIRE_API=responses COPILOT_MODEL=glm-5:cloud copilot

Note: Copilot requires a large context window. We recommend at least 64k tokens. See the context length documentation for how to adjust context length in Ollama.

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