Remote sessions

Remote sessions let users access their Copilot session from GitHub web and mobile. When enabled, the Copilot SDK connects each session to Mission Control, producing a URL that can be shared as a link or QR code.

Prerequisites

• The user must be authenticated (GitHub token or logged-in user)
• The session's working directory must be a GitHub repository

Enabling remote sessions

You can enable remote access at the client level (always-on) or toggle it per session (on-demand).

Always-on (client-level)

Set remote: true when creating the client. Every session in a GitHub repo automatically gets a remote URL.

import { CopilotClient } from "@github/copilot-sdk";

const client = new CopilotClient({ remote: true });
const session = await client.createSession({
  workingDirectory: "/path/to/github-repo",
  onPermissionRequest: async () => ({ allowed: true }),
});

session.on("session.info", (event) => {
  if (event.data.infoType === "remote") {
    console.log("Remote URL:", event.data.url);
  }
});

For examples in Python, Go, C#, and Rust, see the github/copilot-sdk repository. For Java, see the github/copilot-sdk-java repository.

On-demand (per-session toggle)

Use session.rpc.remote.enable() to start remote access mid-session, and session.rpc.remote.disable() to stop it. This is equivalent to Copilot CLI's /remote on and /remote off commands.

const result = await session.rpc.remote.enable();
console.log("Remote URL:", result.url);

// Later: stop sharing
await session.rpc.remote.disable();

For examples in Python, Go, C#, and Rust, see the github/copilot-sdk repository. For Java, see the github/copilot-sdk-java repository.

QR code generation

The remote URL can be rendered as a QR code for easy mobile access. The Copilot SDK provides the URL—use your preferred QR code library.

Notes

• The remote client option only applies when the Copilot SDK spawns Copilot CLI. It is ignored when connecting to an external server via cliUrl.
• If the working directory is not a GitHub repository, remote setup is silently skipped (always-on mode) or returns an error (on-demand mode).
• Remote sessions require authentication. Ensure gitHubToken or useLoggedInUser is configured.