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Top 10 GitHub Copilot Extensions, Led by Docker and PerplexityAI

• By David Ramel
• 01/08/2025

GitHub's fledgling Copilot extensions marketplace is taking shape, with Docker and PerplexityAI being the most popular tools offered so far.

The Microsoft-owned company hosts guidance on how to "Build and deploy with the tools you love in Copilot Chat" on its extension site, along with the marketplace, nearing 30 offerings.

Having debuted in May 2024 during Microsoft Build developer conference as a private preview, it's way behind marketplaces like those for Visual Studio 2022, Visual Studio Code, JetBrains IDE and so on, but looking at the initial entries in the shop -- still in preview -- signals where it's heading.

The extensions work with GitHub Copilot Chat, the AI-powered pair programming tool that leverages natural language processing, (see "Private Preview of GitHub Copilot Extensions Customizes AI Coding Assistance"). They work in GitHub.com, the Visual Studio IDE and VS Code, where developers can access various services, perform actions and generate files without leaving those dev environments. GitHub said they streamline workflows, reduce context-switching and support natural language interactions, enabling seamless debugging, deployment and database management. Organizations can also create private extensions for internal tools, further customizing their development environments.

As of today, a Docker tool and PerplexityAI are the most popular of 29 extensions, with the former boasting about 10,000 installs and the latter about 8,400 installs.

In case you're looking for a helper tool, here are descriptions of the top 10:

• Docker for GitHub Copilot -- Learn about containerization, generate Docker assets and analyze project vulnerabilities in GitHub Copilot: Developers can use @docker to learn about containerization, for generating Docker assets for local development workflows, or analyzing project vulnerabilities with Docker Scout.
• PerplexityAI -- Perplexity answers questions as you code by searching the web: Perplexity is an answer engine that searches the web to provide with the information you need. Now integrated into GitHub Copilot, Perplexity can assist you with any coding questions you have, delivering answers backed by reliable sources from the web. With Perplexity, you can easily verify each answer in real time by checking live references, giving you confidence in the answers as you code.
• Stack Overflow -- Get answers to your most complex coding questions right where you're already working: By delivering 16 years of community-validated, technical knowledge right where you're already working, the Stack Overflow extension for GitHub Copilot keeps you in your flow state so you can increase your productivity and learn faster.
  • Use @askstackoverflow to ask your coding question directly in GitHub Copilot and receive a summarized response based on the 58 million+ technical questions and answers on Stack Overflow
  • Easily access links to the Stack Overflow content used to generate the response to your question for additional context and information
• Mermaid Chart -- Provides advanced and powerful diagramming and visualization to GitHub Copilot Chat: The Mermaid Chart extension provides advanced and powerful diagramming and visualization to GitHub Copilot Chat. Ask @mermaid-chart to visualize parts of your code base. Then, continue to iterate using the Mermaid Chart editor. You can also use the Mermaid Chart extension for general questions about Mermaid, or to modify existing Mermaid diagrams.
• Models (GitHub) -- Copilot Extension to connect and chat with GitHub Models: The GitHub Models agent offers a chat interface to use the capabilities of GitHub Models. It lets you ask about and interact with the LLMs listed on the GitHub Marketplace through Copilot Chat.
• ReadMe API -- Ask questions about the ReadMe API and get help with code, directly in VS code: The ReadMe Copilot extension lets you questions about the ReadMe API and get help with code, directly in VS code! You can ask about what OAS extensions ReadMe supports, how to do things with our API, about how to do various things in the product, and more!
• Product Science -- Get help with performance optimization techniques to make your code faster: Product Science created a GitHub Copilot extension that is focused on performance optimization strategies and techniques. Unlock the potential of the app performance optimization with the Product Science Performance Agent. This intelligent assistant is designed to guide you with enhancing your applications, websites, and software projects, ensuring they are not only efficient but also deliver an exceptional user experience.
• GitBook for GitHub Copilot -- Leverage your GitBook documentation to answer questions, providing instant responses in your workflow: GitBook Copilot allows you to leverage your GitBook documentation to answer user queries, providing instant responses in your workflow. Available under @gitbook-copilot, simply ask questions related to your product, code, or anything else you have documented -- and get personalized answers within the context of your code.
• Sentry for GitHub Copilot -- The Sentry Copilot Extension allows developers to fix broken code from the GitHub UI: The Sentry for GitHub Copilot Extension helps developers find, triage and fix issues in their code leveraging Copilot. Developers can now gain Sentry insights through an intuitive, conversational interface within VS Code and solve issues and create unit tests to avoid future issues directly from the GitHub PR workflow.
• Octopus for GitHub Copilot -- The Octopus extension allows a cloud hosted Octopus instance to be queried via the GitHub Copilot chat interface: The Octopus Extension for Copilot, available under @octopus-ai-app, provides a seamless bridge between developers and their Octopus Deploy deployments. It enhances developers' workflows by allowing them to seamlessly query their Octopus instance within their Copilot chat. Developers and DevOps teams can leverage the Octopus Copilot extension to gain crucial context for their deployments and releases, such as which environment a service is deployed to and whether the deployment was successful. They can access all necessary deployment information without switching contexts with just a few chat messages.