Option to disable Copilot for certain directories / files whose path matches certain patterns

[ouuan]

Motivation

I want to disable Copilot for my university assignments to avoid the risk of cheating. So I want to disable Copilot for all files in a particular directory.

Feature Request

Add an option to disable Copilot for certain directories or files whose path matches certain patterns.

Or provide example config scripts if this can be done by the user without modifying the plugin. I tried running setup conditionally and using autocmd but with no luck.

[zbirenbaum]

I'll think about making this an official feature where users provide a pattern to be matched, but I think that may be overkill for something that can be done in a relatively simple autocmd. This code works perfectly for me:

local disable_dir = vim.fn.expand('$HOME/.config/nvim_configs') .. '/*'

vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd({"LspAttach"}, {
  pattern = disable_dir,
  callback = function (args)
    if not args['data'] or not args.data['client_id'] then return end

    local client = vim.lsp.get_client_by_id(args.data.client_id)
    if client.name == 'copilot' then
      vim.lsp.stop_client(client.id, true)
    end
  end
})

Obviously you will need to change the disable_dir path to be wherever it is you do your work as well as run the above before copilot is launched

[MunifTanjim]

Might be worth adding:

• :Copilot disable to stop the client
• :Copilot enable to start the client (only if copilot.setup() was already called, otherwise it won't know the config)

[ouuan]

As there's no documentation for #127, I'm wondering how it resolves this issue.

[MunifTanjim]

That PR just adds the :Copilot enable and :Copilot disable command, same as the original copilot.vim plugin.

You can use that to completely disable copilot. But the logic of when to disable copilot is still up to you.

You can manually execute that command, or use that with DirChanged autocmd.

Something like:

  local function should_disable_copilot(dir)
    return dir == "/some/specific/dir"
  end

  vim.api.nvim_create_autocmd("DirChanged", {
    callback = function(params)
      if should_disable_copilot(params.file) then
        vim.cmd("Copilot disable")
      end
    end,
  })

  -- for initial directory neovim was started with
  if should_disable_copilot(vim.loop.cwd()) then
    vim.cmd("Copilot disable")
  end

It's up to you to implement your preferred logic.

[MunifTanjim]

Or you can use the 'exrc' option from latest neovim.

And for your specific repo, create a file called .nvim.lua and do:

vim.cmd("Copilot disable")

[ouuan]

A working solution is already provided in @zbirenbaum's comment, and this issue is supposed to be tracking a built-in solution. I'm fine if the built-in solution is not implemented right now, but I don't think this issue should be closed as a result of Copilot disable.

BTW, the LspAttach and lsp.stop_client based solution seems better to me. It directly hooks the LSP event instead of relying on the somehow indirect DirChanged event, and different buffers can have different LSPs attached.

[MunifTanjim]

That comment is quite old and not really what you want. Even if you do lsp.stop_client, when you open another file it'll start the server again. Copilot will be attached to the new buffer, LspAttach will be triggered again, you'll do lsp.stop_client again... and it'll go on for each new file you open. So the plugin is not completely disabled/stopped.

On the other hand :Copilot disable completely disables the plugin. It does lsp.stop_client under the hood along with other stuffs, e.g. cleaning up autocmds created by copilot, to prevent it from automatically starting again.

But you don't specifically need to use DirChanged, you can do the same thing with LspAttach autocmd. It'll run when copilot is initially attached to a buffer, and immediately disable it.

I don't want to add some super specific config option for disabling copilot for certain directories/files patterns. The :Copilot disable solution is flexible enough to satisfy any use-cases. I hope that makes sense.

@zbirenbaum what do you think?

[ouuan]

That comment is quite old and not really what you want. Even if you do lsp.stop_client, when you open another file it'll start the server again. Copilot will be attached to the new buffer, LspAttach will be triggered again, you'll do lsp.stop_client again... and it'll go on for each new file you open. So the plugin is not completely disabled/stopped.

I don't want to completely disable it. I just want it to be disabled when the file is in some directory. If I open a file in another directory, Copilot should be working there.

[MunifTanjim]

I don't want to completely disable it. I just want it to be disabled when the file is in some directory. If I open a file in another directory, Copilot should be working there.

Not sure about the use-case. Can you explain a bit about how you're using neovim?

- dir-a
  - dir-x
    - file-x-1
    - file-x-2
  - dir-y
    - file-y-1
    - file-y-2
- dir-b
  - file-b-1
  - file-b-2

• Open Neovim in dir-a, then you want copilot to be disabled for files inside dir-a/dir-x but enabled for files inside dir-a/dir-y?
• Open Neovim in dir-a, you want copilot to be disabled for all files inside it. Open another Neovim in dir-b, you want copilot to be enabled for all files inside it?
• Open Neovim in dir-a/dir-x, you want copilot to be disabled. Then change the directory using :cd ../dir-y command to dir-a/dir-y and want copilot to be enabled?

Or something else?

[ouuan]

Ideally, whether Copilot is working or not should depend only on the path of the file being edited (whether the path matches a pattern), not where I initially opened neovim, not which files I opened before, and not where the PWD is.

I don't understand your example, because you didn't specify which directory is the directory where I want to disable Copilot.

BTW, the "another directory" in my previous comment means a directory that doesn't match the pattern, not an arbitrary directory.

[ouuan]

I'm commenting here because the "closed this as completed in #127" made me think a built-in solution was added in #127 and I missed it. I'm happy with the lsp.stop_client based solution, so it's OK for me to close this as a no-fix, but not as implemented.