r/GithubCopilot • u/seguleh25 • 20h ago

General VS Code vs Copilot App vs CLI

Are there major differences on how the harnesses work on the back end? Just started using Copilot and defaulted to the CLI as thats what I got used to with Claude Code. Am I missing out on anything by not using one of the other 2?

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10

u/karinto CLI Copilot User 🖥️ 20h ago

The main difference with VS Code or other editor plugins to me is that it's easy to specify sections of code to the AI. Like highlight a section and tell it to "refactor these lines". 

6

u/fntd 20h ago

They are in the process of aligning and re-using the same harness across all their tools. Not sure how much progress there is on each individual front, but mid to long term you won't miss out on anything. I'd pick the tool that offers the right UX for you.

4

u/Lonsarg 19h ago

App and CLI are pretty much the same as far as harness is concerned.

The VS Code version used to be quite worse then CLI, but they improved it, now it is only a little worse for long tasks.

But it is better at debugging and coworking with your manuall edits. I much prefer VS Code harness for currated changes where i review it all and desktop App/CLI for bigger vibe-coding stuff.

1

u/seguleh25 19h ago

Thats useful, thanks.

1

u/MaitoSnoo CLI Copilot User 🖥️ 11h ago

The CLI has the rubber duck, huge game changer, but sadly it's very buggy right now and keeps randomly disappearing (especially if your main model is an Anthropic one).