Visual Studio Code – How to Exclude Specific Files (like .env) from GitHub Copilot in VS Code?

For disabling by language mode, see How can I disable GitHub Copilot in VS Code?. TL;DR click Copilot icon with file open, and select to disable for current language / use the github.copilot.enabled setting.

For example, for .env files, since VS Code doesn’t have a builtin language mode for envfiles, you could install an extension that adds such language support (Ex. mikestead.dotenv ^{_{(I have no affiliation with this extension)}}), and then add dotenv to the list of disabled language modes for GitHub copilot.

For disabling by path, currently, you can only do this if you’re using GitHub Copilot for Business. You have to configure in in GitHub, either applying it to a repo or an org, and it will only apply to people part of your Business subscription. The pattern format is YAML with globbing.

See the following sources:

• https://github.blog/changelog/2023-11-08-copilot-content-exclusion-is-now-available-in-public-beta/
• https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/managing-copilot-business/configuring-content-exclusions-for-github-copilot
• https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/managing-copilot-business/configuring-content-exclusions-for-github-copilot#propagating-content-exclusion-changes-to-vs-code

You can find related community discussion in the following, but at the moment there’s not much other info there:

• Option for disabling Copilot in specific files #11254
• .copilotignore support #10305