Imagine: a developer is working intensively on a project, and suddenly VS Code adds a note to their commit stating that Copilot supposedly helped — even though it didn’t. After numerous complaints from users, Microsoft changed this.
Imagine: a developer is working intensively on a project, and suddenly VS Code adds a note to their commit stating that Copilot supposedly helped — even though it didn’t. After numerous complaints from users, Microsoft changed this.
The initial change — filed as a pull request — was to tweak the Git extension for VS Code to add a “Co-authored-by: Copilot” line to commits that used AI assistance. This was implemented in VS Code version 1.110 in early March. The change in settings was intended to “add this signature to all AI-generated code, including built-in autocomplete,” The Register reports .
However, developers said the AI credit line was added even when they weren't using Microsoft's Copilot assistant or when chat features were turned off. Many expressed dissatisfaction that Microsoft enabled this notification by default.
Over the weekend, Dmytro Vasyura, a VS Code reviewer who initially approved this pull request, published a forum post apologizing for approving the changes without checking how the community would perceive them.
“There was no malicious intent from an ‘evil corporation’ here, just a desire to support the functionality that some customers expect from VS Code for AI-generated code,” he wrote.
He acknowledged that the implementation should account for cases where AI features are disabled and should not incorrectly attribute commits. The fix, made on May 3, is due to arrive in the upcoming VS Code 1.119 release. It reverts the Copilot signature setting back to opt-in (activated only at the user's request).
As Vasyura noted, other artificial intelligence tools independently report their involvement.
VS Code users mostly want to make adding an authorship signature voluntary, not automatic — and they are annoyed that Microsoft implemented this change single-handedly.
Including AI authorship in code commits can cause some complications for developers. Given that content created solely by AI may not be subject to copyright protection, having such a notice potentially complicates the commercial use of AI tools.
