Remote sessions

For running sessions on GitHub-hosted compute, see Cloud sessions.

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

Always-on (client-level)

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

TypeScript

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);
  }
});

Python

from copilot import CopilotClient

client = CopilotClient(enable_remote_sessions=True)
session = await client.create_session(
    working_directory="/path/to/github-repo",
    on_permission_request=lambda req: {"allowed": True},
)

def on_event(event):
    if event.type == "session.info" and event.data.info_type == "remote":
        print(f"Remote URL: {event.data.url}")

session.on(on_event)

Go

client, _ := copilot.NewClient(&copilot.ClientOptions{Remote: true})
session, _ := client.CreateSession(ctx, &copilot.SessionConfig{
    WorkingDirectory: "/path/to/github-repo",
    OnPermissionRequest: func(req copilot.PermissionRequest, inv copilot.PermissionInvocation) (rpc.PermissionDecision, error) {
        return &rpc.PermissionDecisionApproveOnce{}, nil
    },
})

session.On(func(event copilot.SessionEvent) {
    if event.Type == "session.info" {
        // Check infoType and extract URL
    }
})

C#

var client = new CopilotClient(new CopilotClientOptions { Remote = true });
var session = await client.CreateSessionAsync(new SessionConfig
{
    WorkingDirectory = "/path/to/github-repo",
    OnPermissionRequest = (req, inv) =>
        Task.FromResult(PermissionDecision.ApproveOnce()),
});

session.On((SessionEvent e) =>
{
    if (e is SessionInfoEvent info && info.Data.InfoType == "remote")
    {
        Console.WriteLine($"Remote URL: {info.Data.Url}");
    }
});

Rust

use github_copilot_sdk::{Client, ClientOptions, SessionConfig};
use github_copilot_sdk::handler::PermissionResult;

let client = Client::start(
    ClientOptions::new().with_enable_remote_sessions(true)
).await?;
let session = client.create_session(
    SessionConfig::new("/path/to/github-repo")
        .with_permission_handler(|_req, _inv| async {
            Ok(PermissionResult::approve_once())
        }),
).await?;

let mut events = session.subscribe();
while let Ok(event) = events.recv().await {
    if event.event_type == "session.info" {
        // Check info_type and extract URL
    }
}

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 the CLI's /remote on and /remote off commands.

TypeScript

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

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

Python

result = await session.rpc.remote.enable()
print(f"Remote URL: {result.url}")

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

Go

result, err := session.RPC.Remote.Enable(ctx)
if result.URL != nil {
    fmt.Println("Remote URL:", *result.URL)
}

// Later: stop sharing
err = session.RPC.Remote.Disable(ctx)

C#

var result = await session.Rpc.Remote.EnableAsync();
Console.WriteLine($"Remote URL: {result.Url}");

// Later: stop sharing
await session.Rpc.Remote.DisableAsync();

Rust

let result = session.rpc().remote().enable().await?;
if let Some(url) = &result.url {
    println!("Remote URL: {url}");
}

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

QR code generation

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

• TypeScript: qrcode
• Python: qrcode
• Go: go-qrcode
• C#: QRCoder
• Rust: qrcode

Notes

• The remote client option only applies when the SDK spawns the CLI process. 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.