Running Copilot on an air-gapped system isn't possible - Copilot requires network access to function.
To use GitHub Copilot, you must have access to the internet in order to send requests to the Copilot APIs and receive suggestions from GitHub Copilot.
https://docs.posit.co/ide/user/2025.05.1/ide/guide/tools/copilot.html#prerequisites
External Services Used by GitHub Copilot
The GitHub Copilot agent process will communicate with the following external services when authenticating the current user, and also when generating code suggestions:
- github.com
- copilot-proxy.githubusercontent.com
- api.githubcopilot.com
- default.exp-tas.com
If you are having trouble setting up GitHub Copilot in an environment with limited public internet access, you may need to ensure that your network allows access to these services.
https://docs.posit.co/ide/user/ide/guide/tools/copilot.html#external-services-used-by-github-copilot
The Copilot agent for RStudio IDE can be installed while in a network restricted environment.
- downloaded the latest release of
github-copilot.vimvia https://github.com/github/copilot.vim/tags cd ~/Downloadstar -xvf copilot.vim-1.52.0.tar.gzmkdir -p /.cache/rstudio/copilotmv ./github-copilot.vim-1.52.0/dist ~/.cache/rstudio/copilot/distecho {\"commit_hash\":\"51f80c0ed4f70d1c7e8c0ff11a792a9d84502c03\"} > ~/.cache/rstudio/copilot/version.json
Note that the commit_hash mentioned above, is the commit has of the tagged release of the copilot agent that we are consuming - version 1.52.0 has commit hash 51f80c0ed4f70d1c7e8c0ff11a792a9d84502c03:
https://github.com/github/copilot.vim/commit/51f80c0ed4f70d1c7e8c0ff11a792a9d84502c03
The other thing to note is that this is done per-user. Normally, when an individual in the RStudio UI user selects Tools -> Global Options -> Copilot and then checks the "Enable GitHub Copilot" box, this is the package that is then installed in their HOME directory.
The developers note that:
The location could be changed from
~/.cache/rstudio/copilotvia theexternal-copilot-agent-pathdirective inrsession.conf, but the default is that per-user.cachelocation.
So in theory you could configure a shared location that everybody points to and only have to install it once.
https://docs.posit.co/ide/server-pro/admin/reference/rsession_conf.html#external-copilot-path
Within Workbench, unfortunately Copilot will only work in RStudio sessions, not in VSCode sessions - as Copilot is not an open source extension available on https://open-vsx.org:
Note
It is against VS Code’s Terms of Service to use the official Marketplace extensions with third party tools like
code-server. We strongly recommend using a free and open source alternative like Open VSX.
For a similar experience, the Positron IDE, which is based on VSCode, is available in Workbench
https://positron.posit.co/
This IDE has access to the Positron Assistant:
Positron Assistant is an AI client that provides LLM integration within Positron, both for chat and for inline completions. Use Positron Assistant to generate or refactor code, ask questions, get help with debugging, and get suggestions for next steps in your data science projects.