[Python] CopilotClient constructor with github_token does not work

[jiajiwu]

from copilot import CopilotClient

client = CopilotClient({
    "github_token": user_access_token,  # Token from OAuth flow
    "use_logged_in_user": False,        # Don't use stored CLI credentials
})
await client.start()

Failed with error:

AttributeError: 'dict' object has no attribute 'env'

[github-actions]

Investigation findings

What I looked at: python/copilot/client.py (CopilotClient.__init__, line 1074–1160) and python/README.md.

Root cause: The CopilotClient constructor uses keyword-only parameters (Python's *, syntax). Passing a dict as a positional argument is not supported and produces a confusing AttributeError (or TypeError depending on the SDK version) rather than a clear message.

Fix — use keyword arguments directly:

from copilot import CopilotClient

client = CopilotClient(
    github_token=user_access_token,   # keyword argument
    use_logged_in_user=False,         # keyword argument
)
await client.start()

All constructor options are documented in python/README.md under the "All options are kw-only parameters" section. The key options are:

Parameter	Type	Description
github_token	str | None	GitHub token for auth (takes priority over other methods)
use_logged_in_user	bool | None	Whether to use stored CLI credentials (defaults to False when github_token is set)
env	dict | None	Extra env vars for the spawned CLI process

Reclassified as question since the current behavior is correct — the API accepts keyword arguments only, not a configuration dict.

Warning

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Generated by Bug Handler for issue #1552 · ● 4.4M · ◷