- Microsoft faced backlash after “Co-authored by: Copilot” started appearing widely in VS Code
- The company reversed this decision as of version 1.119.
- Developers are still unhappy that the “bug” reached production
Microsoft has rolled back a controversial change in VS Code that automatically partially assigned Github commits to Copilot – even when the AI tool was not used.
Developers had previously taken to forums including Reddit to complain that “Co-written by: Copilot” was being added to their commits, even though they hadn’t used the wizard and had even disabled Copilot’s chat features.
It’s still unclear whether this earlier behavior was intentional, but it appears Microsoft has acknowledged the error and fixed the issue in a new update.
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This explains the “Co-authored by: Copilot” issue in GitHub
A March 2026 change in VS Code would have added the Copilot authorship label regardless of Copilot usage, according to reports, although a VS Code reviewer has since apologized: “There was no malicious intent on the part of VS Code. [an] evil corporation, but rather a desire to support features that some customers expect from VS Code [with regard to] AI-generated code.
Following a more recent change applied in version 1.119, AI attribution will only be added if users explicitly choose it.
“Obviously it should not be enabled when DisableAIFeatures is enabled and it should not report changes that were not made by the AI,” wrote Dmitriy Vasyura. “I will work on fixing them and in the meantime I will revert to the default in update 1.119.”
The company also reduced intrusive Copilot integrations following broader developer backlash, with coders less likely to trust a tool that automatically changes metadata without their explicit consent.
Although the Microsoft employee confirmed that the changes to Copilot’s author label have been reverted, users have still expressed distrust in the company that allowed the feature to reach production in the first place. Many criticized the company for calling these changes bugs, pointing out that they were intentional all along.
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