How to Enable 'Hey Code!' Voice Interactivity for GitHub Copilot Chat

With all the smart devices around the house that can be queued with the likes of 'Hey Google!' wouldn't it be great if we could queue up GitHub Copilot in the same manner either for ease of use or required for accessibility needs? Thankfully this isn't too difficult to configure in Visual Studio Code. Once configured you can say, 'Hey Code!' and use a voice prompt to interact with GitHub Copilot chat.

GitHub Copilot Chat 'Hey Code!' Configuration Steps

1. Open the Command Palette via Ctrl+Shift+P or F1
2. Type in 'accessibility' to access configuration options and select, 'Preferences: Open Accessibility Settings'

3. Add 'voice' to the configuration filter and select 'Accessibility > Voice: Keyword Activation'

4. Select an option for where Copilot Chat interacts with you after saying aloud, 'Hey Code!' in the IDE:

• chatInView: start a voice chat session in the chat view (i.e. the Copilot Chat main window)
• quickChat: start a voice chat session in the quick chat (i.e. Command Palette input)
• inlineChat: start a voice chat session in the active editor if possible (i.e. inline Copilot Chat dialog)
• chatInContext: start a voice chat session in the active editor or view depending on keyboard focus (i.e. if the current cursor is focused within code in a file, the inline Copilot Chat dialog is used, and if the active cursor is in the Copilot Chat main window this will be used to capture the dialog)

My preference is to use chatInContext as it will toggle inline vs window chat based on current focus, but play around with the options to see which is best for you.

A quick way to access these settings once configured is to press the microphone icon in the bottom task bar of Visual Studio Code which will immediately pull up these same settings to modify directly.

Now try it out and say, "Hey Code! Help me create a new Blazor web application!"