GhostPrompt

Ghost-text completions for your Copilot prompts — write faster, think clearer.

Version 0.2.3

Why GhostPrompt

Writing prompts in Copilot Chat is often repetitive and context-switch heavy.
GhostPrompt gives you an inline mini-composer inside VS Code with ghost-text suggestions, so you can draft faster and send to Copilot Chat without breaking flow.

Benefits at a glance

• Faster prompt drafting with inline continuation suggestions
• Safer usage controls (non-premium policy, request governor)
• Better writing flow with keyboard-first interactions (Tab, Enter)
• Compact controls directly inside the composer (policy/style/context/debug)

Preview

Screenshots are collapsed by default so the README stays scannable; click a title to expand. Images are shown at native resolution (no width scaling in markup) so text stays sharp; swap the PNG files if you want smaller repo size.

Video demo

Watch GhostPrompt in action on YouTube: GhostPrompt demo.

1 · Icon and inline composer

2 · Inline continuation in action

3 · Next to Copilot Chat

4 · Quick controls (model, style, context)

Key features

• Inline ghost-text completions — suggestions appear as continuation of your current text. Press Tab to accept.
• Always visible — the input lives in the Activity Bar sidebar and the bottom Panel; pick whichever fits your layout.
• One-key send — Enter sends your prompt to Copilot Chat. Shift+Enter adds a newline.
• Request safety controls — dedupe, cache, cooldown, rate-limit, and session budget to prevent over-calling.
• Model policy controls — force non-premium models by default, with optional override.
• Non-intrusive — completions run via vscode.lm; no draft editor tabs, no focus stealing.
• Private logs — accepted suggestions and sent prompts are saved in the extension's private storage (not inside your project).

Requirements

• VS Code 1.90 or later
• GitHub Copilot extension installed and signed in

Quick start (30 seconds)

1. Open the GhostPrompt panel from the Activity Bar (chat-bubble icon) or from the bottom Panel tabs.
2. Start typing your prompt — after a short pause, a ghost-text continuation appears inline.
3. Press Tab to accept the suggestion and append it to your prompt.
4. Press Enter to send the final prompt to Copilot Chat.

Screenshots: expand 2 · Inline continuation in Preview above.

Integrated with Copilot

You can keep GhostPrompt near Copilot Chat and move quickly between drafting and sending prompts.

See 3 · Next to Copilot Chat in Preview.

Keyboard shortcuts

Settings

Model policy

• ghostPrompt.suggestionModelPolicy = nonPremiumOnly (default): only non-premium-like models are allowed.
• ghostPrompt.suggestionModelPolicy = anyModel: uses the first available model (may consume premium quota).

Suggestion quality

• ghostPrompt.maxSuggestionChars (default 180)
• ghostPrompt.suggestionStyle (concise | balanced | detailed, default balanced)
• ghostPrompt.contextMode (off | basic | project, default basic)
• ghostPrompt.suggestionLanguageMode (auto | manual, default auto)
• ghostPrompt.suggestionLanguage (es | en, used when suggestionLanguageMode=manual)

Request governor (cost/frequency protection)

• ghostPrompt.minCharsForSuggestion (default 6)
• ghostPrompt.requestCooldownMs (default 500)
• ghostPrompt.cacheTtlMs (default 45000)
• ghostPrompt.rateLimitMaxRequests (default 90)
• ghostPrompt.rateLimitWindowMs (default 600000)
• ghostPrompt.sessionRequestBudget (default 300)

Debug mode

• Run command: GhostPrompt: Toggle Debug
• Output channel: GhostPrompt Suggestions
• Setting: ghostPrompt.debugSuggestions

Inside the webview mini-input, you can also change policy, style, context, and debug from the control strip (chips at the top). See 4 · Quick controls in Preview.

Roadmap

v0.2 is shipped; roadmap documents:

• Archived v0.2: Docs/Plans/Roadmaps/Roadmap-v0.2.md
• Current v0.2.2 execution: Docs/Plans/Roadmaps/Roadmap-v0.2.2.md

Full release history is maintained in CHANGELOG.md.

Release notes

0.2.3

• Punctuation boundary polish: better spacing when suggestions continue after punctuation (e.g. :, ;, ,) with no extra duplicated separators.
• Model selector redesign: model dropdown with explicit Free/Premium tier labels and persisted preferred model selection.
• Model transparency: effective model metadata is now traceable in pipeline/debug and visible in webview runtime status.
• Scoped cache keys: cache now separates suggestions by language/style/context/model dimensions to avoid cross-configuration collisions.
• Language stability: auto language detection now uses confidence threshold + hysteresis + fallback for short/mixed inputs.
• Validation and packaging: npm run check and VSIX packaging verified for 0.2.3.

0.2.2

• Request governor retune: more generous defaults (requestCooldownMs=500, rateLimitMaxRequests=90, sessionRequestBudget=300) with clearer blocked-state guidance in UI.
• Context quality: new contextMode=project, adding lightweight workspace/file/language/selection signals plus recent prompts.
• Ghost text robustness: improved normalization for overlap and incomplete trailing-word duplication; safer boundary insertion on Tab acceptance.
• Suggestion language control: auto detection from user input plus manual ES/EN override in the webview controls.
• Validation: npm run check green.

For complete details and historical versions, see CHANGELOG.md.

0.2.0

• Inline ghost-text in the composer, including scroll/height behavior for long suggestions.
• Suggestion pipeline: typed results (suggestion, empty, error, loading), no silent failures.
• Request governor (dedupe, cache, cooldown, rate limit, session budget) to limit accidental over-calling.
• Model policy: default non-premium selection with optional anyModel override; commands and settings for policy/debug.
• Quality controls: suggestion style (concise / balanced / detailed), maxSuggestionChars, optional session context (contextMode).
• Webview UX: compact chip controls, keyboard/a11y polish, layout fixes for narrow Activity Bar views.
• Tests: Vitest suite (npm run test / npm run check).
• Docs: debug flow guide, README screenshots (collapsible), repository metadata for marketplace.

0.0.1

Initial release: dual-panel registration (Activity Bar + bottom Panel), ghost-text completions via vscode.lm, Tab-to-accept, Enter-to-send.

License

This project is released under the MIT License.

Badges are informational only (versions, stack, and links). They do not imply endorsement by Microsoft, GitHub, or the VS Code team. GitHub, GitHub Copilot, and Visual Studio Code are trademarks of their respective owners.

Forks, clones, and renaming

The MIT License allows others to copy, modify, and redistribute the code, including under a different product name, as long as they include the original copyright notice and a copy of the MIT license in the substantial portions they distribute. That means someone could fork the repo and publish “AutoCompletion”-style marketing or chase SEO: that is legally permitted for the code under MIT, provided the license terms are honored.

What MIT does not automatically grant:

• exclusive use of the name GhostPrompt (that is trademark territory; a registered mark offers stronger protection than OSS license alone);
• any rights to use third-party trademarks (Copilot, VS Code logos, etc.) beyond what those companies allow in their brand guidelines.

If you want stronger naming protection, consider registering a trademark for the product name in your jurisdiction and publishing clear branding in the Marketplace listing first.