Bundle Copilot CLI

Bundle Copilot CLI as an npm dependency in your Laravel project when you need strict CLI version control.

Include Copilot CLI in your project

If you need strict Copilot CLI version control, you can include it in your project as an npm package.

Usually, installing Copilot CLI separately during deployment is enough.
See Laravel Cloud usage and GitHub Actions usage.

Prerequisites

Your Laravel project has package.json, and your production server has a Node.js runtime, so npm package installation is available.

Setup

1. Install the npm package

Install @github/copilot in dependencies.

npm install @github/copilot

After installation, you can run Copilot CLI directly at this path.

node node_modules/@github/copilot/npm-loader.js --version

2. Configure .env

Set COPILOT_CLI_PATH to the full path to npm-loader.js.

COPILOT_CLI_PATH=/path/to/project/node_modules/@github/copilot/npm-loader.js

If you want to set the path dynamically with base_path(), edit config/copilot.php directly.

'cli_path' => base_path('node_modules/@github/copilot/npm-loader.js'),

Deployment

During production deployment, reinstall dependencies without devDependencies after building assets. @github/copilot remains because it is in dependencies.

npm install
npm run build
npm install --omit=dev

With npm install --omit=dev, packages in devDependencies are removed, and only dependencies packages (including @github/copilot) remain in node_modules.

Benefits and cautions

Benefits	Cautions
You can manage CLI versions strictly	node_modules size increases
You can pin versions in package.json	CLI updates must be done manually
Everyone on the team uses the same version	A Node.js runtime is required

Authentication

Authentication is the same regardless of installation method. Set COPILOT_GITHUB_TOKEN in .env.

COPILOT_GITHUB_TOKEN=your-token

For details, see Authentication.

For the latest updates, see the GitHub repository.