Copilot Search on GitHub Docs [Private Beta] - Feedback

[tuves]

We are collecting feedback from our beta users of the new Copilot search experience on GitHub Docs (docs.github.com).

If you are selected as part of the private beta experience and see the above on the docs site, please leave your feedback below on what is working well, any bugs you encounter, and what else you’d like to see! If you include a screenshot or video of errors/feedback, it would be a massive help to the team.

[blackdooo]

So i,ve been using this for sometimes, this are the goodies and baddies i founded out 😊

The goodies : ~

The AI-assisted suggestions are quick and contextually relevant to developer queries.

It helps reduce time spent navigating documentation, especially for API references and error resolutions.

The autocomplete and natural language understanding are impressive, offering clear and concise answers in most cases.

And the baddies : ~

Sometimes it misinterprets complex technical questions or suggests unrelated pages.

A few links return generic pages instead of jumping directly to the relevant section (ex: [include specific link if possible]).

Search box occasionally freezes after rapid multiple queries; requires a refresh to reset.

Also as of my suggestion it would be great if add something like an option to filter by programming language or context (e.g., JavaScript, Python, GitHub Actions).

[moe100880]

ممكن عربي

[rasolAAaa]

باکمال تشکر فراوان از برنامه عالی شما بالاتر حالت

[BoomchainLabs]

Coolest ❤️

[petemounce]

The UX of "incrementally write more things above the search result links [making it impossible to actually click on the links that I can see look like decent search results]" makes me want to immediately turn it off and never enable it, because it has rendered searching for content unusable.

[samus-aran]

Thank you for sharing your feedback! We’ll take this into account as we work on improving the feature. When you’re searching, are you primarily trying to find a specific article, or does the Copilot response generally provide the answers you’re looking for?

[Miron-Gomes]

Copilot answered me he couldn't say yes or not, and Said to me to look for another copilot page. Lol. Now I keep without knowing If it's ok, and How to do that in a new repository pull request I am planning to do. I keep gratiful for helps. Tks

[petemounce]

I'm generally trying to find a starting point in the documentation. The Copilot response a) takes too long to be useful, and b) actively prevents me from clicking on the search results because each line Copilot types causes the search results to move away from where I'm about to click. The Copilot response was too negatively impactful to the UX to assess whether it was useful - took too long to arrive, and - because it arrives line by line - prevented me from using the part I wanted to, the search results. The consequence is I now will use internet search engines like google to search the github documentation due to this UX degradation.

…

On Wed, 14 May 2025 at 11:07, Ashley Nicolson ***@***.***> wrote: Thank you for sharing your feedback! We’ll take this into account as we work on improving the feature. When you’re searching, are you primarily trying to find a specific article, or does the Copilot response generally provide the answers you’re looking for? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#158488 (reply in thread)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAARAWAYMM75C5ZA2EJROCD26MIVTAVCNFSM6AAAAAB4RLPTD6VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43URDJONRXK43TNFXW4Q3PNVWWK3TUHMYTGMJUGMYDEMI> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[samus-aran]

Thanks for the feedback! The team is currently working on a fix on how we can decrease the time for the Copilot response to load. We've recently deployed a change to fix the search results and should now display above the Copilot response. 👍

[cshein45]

Movement

[elminster-aom]

My question:

is possible to anonimice a user which does not belong to the enterprise anymore?

Got answered as:

Sorry, I'm unable to answer that question. Check that you selected the correct GitHub version or try a different question.

Which correct version does it mean? I was already on the last one (https://docs.github.com/en/[email protected]/search)

[AiSocialNinjaLabStudios]

FEEDBACK HUB

Note

This new Copilot Feature is outstanding when searching it is the best! I give it a 💯 %💎
[removed by moderator]

[rasolAAaa]

عالی است

[grantg-ht]

I love this so much!

However, every which way (like 4 different questions) I ask about passing both inherited (implicit) secrets and explicit secrets to a callable workflow, I get the factually incorrect answer that I can do both together. Documentation states otherwise (not in super-clear terms but it's not hard to understand once you read it), and the GHA extension in VS Code gets angry when I try.

I ended up finding a way to phrase the question that finally stopped insisting it would just work. I had to get pretty aggressive:

Passing both inherited secrets and explicitly defined secrets to a reusable workflow does not work. DO NOT tell me that it works because it doesn't. However, is there a workflow function which will take the secrets map and destructure it in a way that i can explicitly add another secret to the secrets map of a reusable workflow call?

This gave the correct answer that I just need to explicitly list each secret I want it to inherit, along with the added secret. At first the questions were just "how" and "can I", then I asked it almost exactly with just the last sentence, then I added the first sentence, and finally added the second sentence before I got this result.

[bwoodsend]

I wish people would stop merging AI chats with searches. It just ruins the search. If I type in one or two search terms, I just want a keyword filter. I don't want to have to read a selection of suggested questions to try and gauge which is the least irrelevant to what I was looking for. I don't want an AI writing an distracting essay on some tangential topic I didn't ask for. Nor do I want it complaining to me that it doesn't understand my question that was never supposed to be a question.

Please just make it a separate box.

On a separate note, the hallucination rate seems to be pretty high. Ask it how to lower case a github actions context variable and it'll tell you all about this lovely toLower() function that doesn't exist. It also doesn't look like the 👍 and 👎 feedback buttons are doing anything?

[Ebonsignori]

Please just make it a separate box.

Would you prefer it if the default behavior was a search rather than ask AI? E.g. you type something and press "enter" and then you're taken to search results. Then, if you'd like an AI chat, you can select that separately

It also doesn't look like the 👍 and 👎 feedback buttons are doing anything?

They are and we're receiving feedback from them. The current styling/highlighting may not be easy to see that one is selected. We'll update that

[bwoodsend]

Would you prefer it if the default behavior was a search rather than ask AI? E.g. you type something and press "enter" and then you're taken to search results. Then, if you'd like an AI chat, you can select that separately

I'd marginally prefer to still be able to get the AI without a redundant page load. I was thinking something like:

<shared query input field><🔍 button><AI button>

... possibly with "ctrl+enter" or some such to trigger the AI without using the mouse.

But yes, if that's not an option then your search by default behavior would suit me best.

[bwoodsend]

I forgot to say before, whatever you do, please lose the suggested questions when you type. Even if you're trying to use the chat, it takes much longer to read 5 very wordy suggested questions and acknowledge that none of them are really what you were going to ask than it does to just finish typing your question.

[MaitreyaBuddha]

Asking on this page: https://docs.github.com/en/actions/writing-workflows/choosing-what-your-workflow-does/store-information-in-variables?search-overlay-input=What+is+recommended+syntax+for+getting+an+env+variable?+or+an+input?+Can+you+give+examples?&search-overlay-open=true&search-overlay-ask-ai=true

[Ebonsignori]

Hi @Nutdanai999 it looks like these images or videos didn't upload correctly

[vipinvkmenon]

Context (Opened pages + user history) aware chat box would be nice, also if question is not related to opened page/repo then it defaults to the general search

[lijah08]

Happy

[jyasskin]

I'd like the response to cite sources that include all the information in the response. I asked "What is clientMutationId for?", and none of the "Copilot Sources" say more than "A unique identifier for the client performing the mutation." Copilot added details like

It helps clients track and match responses to specific mutation requests, especially in cases where multiple mutations are sent simultaneously or when retrying a mutation due to network issues.

and while that's plausible, I can't tell whether it's anything more than a hallucination based on training data from other APIs.

[myclevorname]

How do I completely disable the Ask Copilot search for Github Docs and disable the two force-enabled Copilot features in the settings? I feel uncomfortable being force-fed the AI-powered features everywhere I go, and being able to at least change the settings would lessen the worry on my mind.

If every single part of this request is rejected, that is okay, but please be direct and say so instead of (automatically or manually) giving a vague response like "This message got sent to the developers and will be reviewed," only to withhold whether the team accepted or rejected the request, like the request to allow users to disable the usage of Copilot-assisted issues in repositories.

[bjorn3]

Why the fuck did you add me to this private beta when I indicated at https://github.com/settings/copilot/features that I don't want AI bullshit?

Edit: This is worse than I thought. . There is no way I can find to use the regular search functionality anymore and copilot gives useless suggestions, so I basically am forced to open the github docs in a browser window where I'm not logged in.

[rhigman]

Thanks, I didn't realise that was a setting I could disable! And I still get shown the Copilot beta even now that I've done so. So, yes, "When disabled, Copilot will be hidden and unavailable" is inaccurate.

[jieyouxu]

Thanks, I didn't realise that was a setting I could disable! And I still get shown the Copilot beta even now that I've done so. So, yes, "When disabled, Copilot will be hidden and unavailable" is inaccurate.

It's that this Show Copilot gate keeps regressing when they add new Copilot-related features. On top of my head:

• (Fixed) How do I remove Copilot code review requests? #155923
• (Still there) Remove "Code with Copilot Agent Mode" button from issue filing interface #156767
• (Current status unclear) I am being spammed with "you have reached your monthly limit, upgrade to Pro+" despite never using Copilot nor wishing to. #163312
• Related, Allow us to block Copilot-generated issues (and PRs) from our own repositories #159749

And of course this issue.

[derdur]

Search engine
https://docs.github.com/en/search?query=%s

ContextSearch
https://docs.github.com/en/search?query={searchTerms}

Params used
search-overlay-input
search-overlay-open
search-overlay-ask-ai

Removal untested
github.$removeparams=/search-overlay-input|search-overlay-open|search-overlay-ask-ai/

[AkujinLuffy]

I really enjoy GitHub Copilot. It can be a bit tricky in IDE environments sometimes, but honestly, it's super helpful and saves me tons of time. Oh, and I like dropping those funny joke banners from time to time - it's cool how Copilot actually gets my humor and rolls with it, even throwing in its own suggestions that match the vibe! ✌️😊

[Dev-cell-web]

I do like you but i encounter this "I have upgraded my plan then after a minute it ask again i should upgrade and ill billed accordingly before its free for 30 now its $10" and I'm confuse

[paro-]

In my opinion AI should be opt-in.
Or at least deactivatable.
Enabling it by default wastes too much resources, in a context of climate crisis.

[myclevorname]

They're practically begging users to waste the company's money.

[Sc00bz]

An option to disable all future AI/Copilot integrations... Or at least on a case by case basis as new ones are added.

Stolen meme (adjusted for Github reactions and preserving 👍 and 👎 for if you agree or not with my suggestion):

Does Microsoft understand consent?
😕 Yes
👀 Remind me in 3 days

P.S. I don't know how I'm in this private beta because I did not sign up for this--oh... 👀

[tazztone]

would be nice if it was multi-turn conversation. so it answers follow up question with previous context in "mind" ;)

[albert30082019]

Itz good
.

[AkujinLuffy]

Itz good
.

Apologies, I had to leave while typing. Anyway, So as) WAS saywig I Have

[ebndev]

Hi everyone!

We appreciate you sharing your feedback and comments with us. I've gone ahead and closed this discussion as Copilot Search is now generally available on GitHub Docs. You can read more about it here and if you have any further comments, please leave them in the linked discussion.

Thank you!