GitHub Copilot just switched to 'Free Trial' mode.

The Problem: GitHub Copilot just deactivated the free trial

If you’ve been using GitHub Copilot’s technical preview, your Copilot probably just deactivated.

Clicking the Copilot Settings button leads you to your GitHub account, where you are prompted to start a free 60-day trial.

The long and short of it is that it looks like free use of Copilot is over as of August 23 (that’s my birthday, so happy birthday to me I suppose!).

GitHub Copilot is free until August 22

Thank you for being part of the GitHub Copilot technical preview. You can continue to use GitHub Copilot for free until August 22, 2022.

What does GitHub Copilot cost?

Copilot is going to cost $10 USD a month or $100 USD a year for individual GitHub accounts. Check it out at the sign up page.

Can you continue to use Copilot for free?

There were some indications that you could have free access to Copilot for open-source projects, and this seems to be the case if you have one of the most popular open-source projects. The details are on the Copilot website.

• If you are a student registered with GitHub Global Campus Program, you can also get free access.

If none of these scenarios apply to you, then you might as well try the free trial and get prepared to pay for your usage, or else you can take a look at an open-source alternative like gpt-code-clippy.

Here’s a link to the free VS Code extension, but it doesn’t look like it’s been in active development for about 6 months.