Closed
Description
Context:
From @karthiknadig: The chat agent can run long-lived or error-prone terminal commands, and Copilot remains unaware of what’s happening in the terminal. This limits its ability to provide timely suggestions or detect inefficiencies.
Problem:
- Inefficient commands (e.g. redundant builds) go unnoticed.
- Repeated errors or warnings receive no guidance.
- Copilot has no visibility into command failures unless prompted.
Proposal:
Allow Copilot to (optionally) observe terminal output to:
- Detect repeated errors or warnings and suggest fixes.
- Recommend command optimizations (e.g., caching, watch mode).
- Proactively offer help when commands fail (e.g., “Want help debugging this?”).
- Reply to in terminal prompts like Y/N
Questions:
- We already have diagnostic awareness for tasks. Should we introduce dynamic problem matchers for terminals?
- How would users feel about terminal output sharing?
- How would we parse the output?