Copilot Adapter

Extend VS Code's native Copilot Chat with third-party AI models. Switch between DeepSeek, MiniMax, and more directly from the Copilot model selector — the same experience as built-in Copilot models, with your own API keys, no Copilot subscription, and no local proxy needed.

简体中文

• Providers
• Quick Start
• Security
• Features
  • Thinking Modes
  • Vision Proxy
  • Per-Provider Settings
• Configuration Reference
• Commands

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Providers

Provider	Models	API Keys
DeepSeek	V4 Flash · V4 Pro	platform.deepseek.com
MiniMax	Text-01 · M1 · M2 · M2.1 · M2.5 · M2.7 (+ highspeed variants)	minimax.io

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Quick Start

1. Install the extension.
2. Open the Language Models panel (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+P → Language Models), select a provider, and enter your API key — this is the native VS Code approach and the recommended way.
3. Open Copilot Chat, click the model selector, and choose a model.

Alternative: Use the command Copilot Adapter: Add API Key (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+P) to store a key without opening the Language Models panel.

A step-by-step walkthrough covers all of the above: open it via Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+P → Welcome: Open Walkthrough → AI Models Adapter for Copilot Chat.

For a visual guide with screenshots, see How to Add a Model Provider.

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Security

API keys are stored exclusively in VS Code's Secret Storage, backed by the OS credential manager — Keychain on macOS, Credential Manager on Windows, libsecret on Linux.

• Never written to settings.json — keys are stored as secrets, completely separate from VS Code settings. They cannot be synced via Settings Sync and will never appear in any configuration file on disk.
• Cannot be accidentally committed — because keys exist only in the OS credential store, there is no file to stage or push.
• Masked in all logs — even when debugMode is set to verbose, API keys are masked in the output channel (e.g. sk-12345678••••••••cdef). The raw key value is never logged.

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Features

Thinking Modes

Reasoning models (DeepSeek V4 Pro, MiniMax M-series) expose a configurable effort level, accessible in the model's settings inside the Language Models panel:

Level	Description
None	No reasoning steps — fastest output
High	Balanced depth, good for day-to-day tasks
Max	Full reasoning budget for hard problems

Levels shown are DeepSeek V4 as an example; option names may differ across providers.

Vision Proxy

Text-only models cannot accept image attachments directly. When a vision proxy is configured, the extension automatically describes any attached images using a separate vision-capable model and injects those descriptions as text — so text-only models can handle image attachments seamlessly.

Set up via Copilot Adapter: Set Vision Proxy Model or the copilot-adapter.visionProxyModel setting.
Disable at any time by setting the value to off.

Per-Provider Settings

Advanced customization — no configuration needed for normal use.

Each provider can be configured independently under copilot-adapter.providers:

"copilot-adapter.providers": {
  "deepseek": {
    "enabled": true,
    "temperature": 0.7
  },
  "minimax": {
    "enabled": false
  }
}

Key	Type	Description
enabled	boolean	Enable or disable the provider (default: true for DeepSeek)
baseUrl	string	Override the API endpoint (useful with compatible proxies)
temperature	number (0–2)	Sampling temperature
topP	number (0–1)	Top-p nucleus sampling
tokenRatio	number	Characters-per-token ratio for context size estimation
streamUsage	boolean	Set false for proxies that don't support streaming usage stats

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Configuration Reference

Setting	Default	Description
copilot-adapter.providers	{ deepseek: { enabled: true } }	Per-provider configuration object — see above
copilot-adapter.maxTokens	0	Max output tokens; 0 uses the model's built-in default
copilot-adapter.visionProxyModel	"off"	Model ID to use as vision proxy, or "off" to disable — see Vision Proxy
copilot-adapter.requestTimeout	60	Request timeout in seconds
copilot-adapter.requestRetries	2	Retry attempts on transient errors (max 5)
copilot-adapter.debugMode	"off"	Log verbosity: off / info / meta / verbose

Debug Mode Levels

Level	Output channel	Model id / apiId / endpoint	Request dump to disk
off	—	—	—
info	✔ request metadata	—	—
meta	✔ request metadata	✔	—
verbose	✔ request metadata	✔	✔

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Commands

Command	Description
Copilot Adapter: Add API Key	Store an API key in VS Code's secret storage
Copilot Adapter: Remove API Key	Clear a stored API key
Copilot Adapter: Set Vision Proxy Model	Choose the model to use as vision proxy
Copilot Adapter: Open Settings	Jump to extension settings
Copilot Adapter: Show Logs	Open the output channel

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License

MIT