Never lose your GitHub Copilot session history again

Key Concepts:

• Copilot history/logging
• Changelog.md
• Local change tracking
• Version control (Copilot's internal versioning)

Copilot History and Changelog Creation

The speaker emphasizes the importance of maintaining a history of Copilot's actions during a coding session. The core issue is the ephemeral nature of Copilot chat sessions; once the session ends, the record of Copilot's activities is lost.

Solution: Changelog.md

To address this, the speaker proposes instructing Copilot to create and maintain a changelog.md file. The instruction given to Copilot is: "Hey, make a changelog.md and then each time you do something, add on to that change log."

Benefits of Changelog.md

• Detailed Record: The changelog.md file provides a detailed record of Copilot's actions, not just the final commits.
• Local Change Tracking: It tracks changes made locally, even before they are committed to a version control system. This is crucial for understanding the evolution of the code during the Copilot-assisted development process.
• Internal Versioning: The speaker highlights the concept of Copilot essentially performing its own versioning of the changes it makes. This allows developers to review the specific modifications introduced by Copilot at each step.

Significance and Application

The speaker expresses enthusiasm for this approach, stating, "Love it. I've never seen this before and now that I'm looking at it, it makes so much so much sense to have it do its own versioning of the changes that it's doing." This suggests that the changelog.md technique is a novel and valuable method for enhancing transparency and control when using Copilot.

Transition to Practical Application

The speaker then suggests moving from theoretical discussion to practical application, indicating a desire to demonstrate the technique in a real-world coding scenario: "But should we like get into building something? We've talked enough. Let's let's make make stuff happen."

Conclusion

The key takeaway is the importance of tracking Copilot's actions beyond just commit history. The changelog.md approach provides a mechanism for detailed local change tracking and internal versioning, offering developers greater insight and control over the Copilot-assisted development process. This is particularly useful for understanding the specific contributions of Copilot and for debugging or reverting changes if necessary.