VOCE-DevOps, a Vs-cOde Copilot Extension for DevOps

This Visual Studio Code Extension enriches Copilot with data from GitHub issues/PRs and Azure DevOps work items/PRs.

Features

GitHub Integration

• Issues: Reference with /gh-issue !<issueNumber> or search by title
• Pull Requests: Reference with /gh-pullrequest !<prNumber> or search by title
• Comments: Add + for comments (e.g., !1234+)
• Cross-repo: Use gh:<owner>/<repo> syntax

Azure DevOps Integration

• Work Items: Reference with /azd-workitem !<workItemNumber> or search by title
• Pull Requests: Reference with /azd-pullrequest !<prNumber> or search by title
• Comments: Add + for comments (e.g., !1234+)
• Cross-org: Use azdo:<org>/<project> syntax
• Real API: Uses Azure DevOps Node.js API with PAT authentication

🆕 Intelligent Parsing

The extension now uses AI to understand natural language requests! You can:

• Ask naturally: "Show me work item 123" → automatically detects Azure DevOps work item
• Skip exact syntax: "What's GitHub issue 456 with comments?" → understands you want comments
• Mix contexts: "Pull request 789 from microsoft/vscode" → extracts repo context

The AI parser works as a fallback when:

• No explicit command is provided
• Command is provided but syntax is unclear or incomplete

Usage

Traditional Syntax (Still Supported)

GitHub Issues

@voce /gh-issue !1234 Provide implementation suggestion in C#
@voce /gh-issue !1234+ Include comments in analysis
@voce /gh-issue gh:owner/repo !1234 Cross-repository reference

Azure DevOps Work Items

@voce /azd-workitem !5678 What's the status of this task?
@voce /azd-workitem !5678+ Summarize the discussion
@voce /azd-workitem azdo:myorg/myproject !5678 Cross-org reference

🆕 Natural Language (AI-Powered)

@voce Show me work item 123
@voce What's the status of GitHub issue 456 with all comments?
@voce Tell me about pull request 789 from microsoft/vscode
@voce Summarize Azure DevOps task 321 with discussion from contoso/webapp
@voce Find pull requests about authentication
@voce Search for PRs containing bugfix
@voce Show me PRs with security in the title
@voce Find Azure DevOps PRs about performance optimization
@voce Search for pull requests with bug fix in Azure DevOps
@voce Find GitHub issues about login problems
@voce Search for work items containing performance
@voce Show me issues with authentication errors

The AI will automatically:

• Detect the correct command type
• Extract item IDs for specific references
• 🆕 Search pull requests, issues, and work items by title content (contains search)
• Understand when you want comments/discussion
• Parse repository or project context

🔍 Title Search

New Feature: You can now search for pull requests, issues, and work items by title content instead of just by ID across both GitHub and Azure DevOps!

Examples:

@voce Find pull requests about authentication
@voce Search for PRs containing bug fix  
@voce Show me PRs with security in the title
@voce Look for pull requests about feature implementation
@voce Find GitHub issues about login
@voce Search for work items with bug in title
@voce Show me issues containing authentication
@voce Find Azure DevOps work items about performance

How it works:

• Title Search: Searches titles for containing the specified keywords (case-insensitive)
• Multiple Results: Shows up to 10 matching items with summaries and direct links
• Backward Compatible: Traditional !<number> ID searches continue to work unchanged
• Comments Support: Add "with comments" to include comments/discussion
• Cross-Platform: Works with both GitHub and Azure DevOps repositories
• Smart Filtering: GitHub issues search excludes pull requests for clean results

Search Results Display:

• Item number, title, and status/type
• Brief description preview
• Direct links to open each item in browser
• Sorted by most recently updated

Setup

GitHub Copilot Model Configuration (Optional)

You can configure your preferred model vendor and family for general chat responses:

1. Open VS Code settings (File > Preferences > Settings)
2. Search for "voce"
3. Set voce.preferredChatModel to your preferred model family (e.g., "gpt-4o", "gpt-4")
4. Set voce.preferredChatVendor to your preferred vendor (e.g., "copilot", "openai")
5. Leave both empty to use the default model

Examples:

• Default: Both settings empty → Uses default Copilot model
• Family only: voce.preferredChatModel: "gpt-4o" → Uses Copilot vendor with gpt-4o family
• Both specified: voce.preferredChatVendor: "openai" + voce.preferredChatModel: "gpt-4" → Uses OpenAI vendor with gpt-4 family

Note: The extension automatically uses the default (fast and cheap) model for parsing operations to understand your intent, regardless of these settings.

Azure DevOps (Optional)

For real Azure DevOps data, configure a Personal Access Token:

1. Create PAT at https://dev.azure.com/{org} with Work Items: Read scope
2. Add to VS Code settings: voce.azureDevOpsPat

See AZURE_DEVOPS_API_SETUP.md for details.

Running the extension

• Run npm install in terminal to install dependencies
• Run the Run Extension target in the Debug View. This will:
  • Start a task npm: watch to compile the code
  • Run the extension in a new VS Code window

Inspiration

This Extension is based on the chat sample of vscode extension guides documented Chat Example

Authors

This vs-code copilot extension is created and maintained by Nico Orschel and Harald Binkle