Copilot Logger

This lightweight extension tracks GitHub Copilot completions and chat sessions, aggregates metrics, and saves them locally as structured JSON for further private analysis and reporting.

Note: This extension only collects and stores raw metrics data. Analysis and reporting are not included and must be set up separately by the user.

Fully local data collection with no telemetry or data transmission outside the user's machine.

Key Features

• Local tracking of GitHub Copilot completions and chat activity
• Automatic background collection every 60 minutes
• Structured JSON metrics for usage reporting
• Configurable data storage location
• No external servers, no uploads, no dependency on network access

Designed for organizations requiring strict privacy, compliance, or offline workflows.

Installation & Setup

1. Install the extension from Visual Studio Marketplace
2. Restart Visual Studio
3. On first launch, you'll be prompted to provide:
   • Your Name: Same as your corporate email address without domain (e.g., "john.doe" from john.doe@company.com)
   • Team/Project Name: Your team or project name
   • Customer Name: The customer/client name you're working for

Configuration is saved and can be updated by editing: %AppData%\CopilotLogCollector\userconfig.txt

Data Storage

Default folder location: Desktop\copilot-vs-log\metrics\

Metrics Format Overview

Example (metrics_YYYY-MM-DD.json):

{
  "date": "2025-10-08",
  "source": "copilot",
  "action": "completion",
  "servedBy": "gpt-5",
  "numRequests": 3,
  "name": "John Doe",
  "team": "DevOps",
  "customerName": "Apple",
  "ide": "Visual Studio"
}

Tracked elements:

• Activity date
• Interaction type (completion or chat)
• Request count
• User/team/customer name identifiers from configuration
• IDE identifier

No workspace or source code is collected.

Output

Metrics saved to: Desktop\copilot-vs-log\metrics\

• all_metrics.json - All aggregated metrics
• YYYY-MM-DD_aggregated.json - Daily metrics

View Output

View → Output → Select "Copilot Log Collector" from dropdown

Sample Output

=== Recollecting 60 minutes time current 10/13/2025 2:30:00 PM found 3 files ===
User: John Doe, Team: Engineering
Parsed 150 new records incrementally
Aggregated into 12 metric groups
Updated: C:\Users\...\Desktop\copilot-vs-log\metrics\2025-10-13_aggregated.json
Updated: C:\Users\...\Desktop\copilot-vs-log\metrics\all_metrics.json
  Total Requests: 150
  Unique Dates: 1

Configuration

Settings: %AppData%\CopilotLogCollector\userconfig.txt Parser state: %AppData%\CopilotLogCollector\parserstate.json

Troubleshooting

Restarting or reinstalling the extension may resolve unresolved state issues.

🔒 Data Privacy & Compliance

This extension adheres to strict local-only data handling:

• ✅ Data collected: Copilot usage metadata only.
• ❌ Data not collected: source code, credentials, personal content.
• ✅ Data storage: exclusively on the user's machine.
• ❌ No network transmission or analytics services.
• ✅ Fully transparent, open-source implementation.

Organizational users are responsible for ensuring internal compliance with data retention policies. To cease data collection → disable or uninstall the extension.

Requirements

• Visual Studio 2022 or later
• GitHub Copilot extension installed

For Developers

Building and Publishing

For developers who want to build, modify, or publish new versions of this extension, please refer to the comprehensive guide:

PUBLISHING.md - Complete guide for building and publishing new versions

Topics covered:

• Prerequisites and setup
• Version management
• Building locally
• Publishing to Visual Studio Marketplace
• GitLab CI/CD pipeline configuration
• Troubleshooting common issues

Quick Start for Developers

# Build the extension
MSBuild.exe VS_CopilotLogCollector.sln /p:Configuration=Release /p:DeployExtension=false

# Publish to marketplace
.\publish-local.ps1 -PersonalAccessToken $env:MARKETPLACE_PAT

Repository Structure

vs_copilot_log_collector/
├── VS_CopilotLogCollector/          # Main extension project
│   ├── source.extension.vsixmanifest  # Extension metadata & version
│   ├── *.cs                           # Source code files
│   └── VS_CopilotLogCollector.csproj  # Project configuration
├── .gitlab-ci.yml                   # CI/CD pipeline configuration
├── publishManifest.json             # Marketplace publishing config
├── publish-local.ps1                # Local publishing script
├── PUBLISHING.md                    # Developer guide
└── README.md                        # This file