Use a model from an external provider of your choice in Copilot by supplying your own API key. In this article You can configure Copilot CLI to use your own LLM provider, also called BYOK (Bring Your Own Key), instead of GitHub-hosted models. This lets you connect to OpenAI-compatible endpoints, Azure OpenAI, or Anthropic, including locally running models such as Ollama. This article is for users who want to configure their own LLM provider API key on their local machine. To set up custom models for users in an enterprise, see Enabling custom models for GitHub Copilot in your enterprise . Copilot CLI is installed. See Installing GitHub Copilot CLI . You have an API key from a supported LLM provider, or you have a local model running (such as Ollama). Supported providers Copilot CLI supports three provider types: For additional examples, run copilot help providers in your terminal. Model requirements Models must support tool calling (also called function calling) and streaming . If a model does not support either capability, Copilot CLI returns an error. For best results, use a model with a context window of at least 128k tokens. Configuring your provider You configure your model provider by setting environment variables before starting Copilot CLI. Connecting to an OpenAI-compatible endpoint Use the following steps if you are connecting to OpenAI, Ollama, vLLM, Foundry Local, or any other endpoint that is compatible with the OpenAI Chat Completions API. Set environment variables for your provider. For example, for a local Ollama instance: export COPILOT_PROVIDER_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434 export COPILOT_MODEL=YOUR-MODEL-NAME Replace YOUR-MODEL-NAME with the name of the model you have pulled in Ollama (for example, llama3.2 ). Set environment variables for your provider. For example, for a local Ollama instance: Replace YOUR-MODEL-NAME with the name of the model you have pulled in Ollama (for example, llama3.2 ). For a remote OpenAI endpoint, also set your API key. export COPILOT_PROVIDER_BASE_URL=https://api.openai.com/v1 export COPILOT_PROVIDER_API_KEY=YOUR-OPENAI-API-KEY export COPILOT_MODEL=YOUR-MODEL-NAME Replace YOUR-OPENAI-API-KEY with your OpenAI API key and YOUR-MODEL-NAME with the model you want to use (for example, gpt-4o ). For a remote OpenAI endpoint, also set your API key. Replace YOUR-OPENAI-API-KEY with your OpenAI API key and YOUR-MODEL-NAME with the model you want to use (for example, gpt-4o ). Start Copilot CLI. Start Copilot CLI. Connecting to Azure OpenAI

Set the environment variables for Azure OpenAI. export COPILOT_PROVIDER_BASE_URL=https://YOUR-RESOURCE-NAME.openai.azure.com/openai/deployments/YOUR-DEPLOYMENT-NAME export COPILOT_PROVIDER_TYPE=azure export COPILOT_PROVIDER_API_KEY=YOUR-AZURE-API-KEY export COPILOT_MODEL=YOUR-DEPLOYMENT-NAME Replace the following placeholders: YOUR-RESOURCE-NAME : your Azure OpenAI resource name YOUR-DEPLOYMENT-NAME : the name of your model deployment YOUR-AZURE-API-KEY : your Azure OpenAI API key Set the environment variables for Azure OpenAI. Replace the following placeholders: YOUR-RESOURCE-NAME : your Azure OpenAI resource name YOUR-DEPLOYMENT-NAME : the name of your model deployment YOUR-AZURE-API-KEY : your Azure OpenAI API key Start Copilot CLI. Start Copilot CLI. Connecting to Anthropic Set the environment variables for Anthropic: export COPILOT_PROVIDER_TYPE=anthropic export COPILOT_PROVIDER_BASE_URL=https://api.anthropic.com export COPILOT_PROVIDER_API_KEY=YOUR-ANTHROPIC-API-KEY export COPILOT_MODEL=YOUR-MODEL-NAME Replace YOUR-ANTHROPIC-API-KEY with your Anthropic API key and YOUR-MODEL-NAME with the Claude model you want to use (for example, claude-opus-4-5 ). Set the environment variables for Anthropic: Replace YOUR-ANTHROPIC-API-KEY with your Anthropic API key and YOUR-MODEL-NAME with the Claude model you want to use (for example, claude-opus-4-5 ). Start Copilot CLI. Start Copilot CLI. Running in offline mode You can run Copilot CLI in offline mode to prevent it from contacting GitHub's servers. This is designed for isolated environments where the CLI should communicate only with your local or on-premises model provider. Offline mode only guarantees full network isolation if your provider is also local or within the same isolated environment. If COPILOT_PROVIDER_BASE_URL points to a remote endpoint, your prompts and code context are still sent over the network to that provider. Configure your provider environment variables as described in Configuring your provider. Configure your provider environment variables as described in Configuring your provider. Set the offline mode environment variable: export COPILOT_OFFLINE=true Set the offline mode environment variable: Start Copilot CLI. Start Copilot CLI.