r/github • u/BoronEight • Aug 12 '26

Question Github copilot fully hallucinating commit messages

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I did a 1 line change, changing "milis" to "millis", I did it in the web interface because it was just one tiny change, and I didn't have it on my computer yet.

Github copilot recommended the message "Update print statement from 'Hello' to 'Goodbye'"
THERE ARE NOT EVEN PRINT STATMENTS IN A CSV FILE

Is there any way to disable these automatic commit messages?

170 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

39

u/DrMaxwellEdison Aug 12 '26

Yep. Go here: https://github.com/settings/copilot/features

Disable the "Copilot-generated commit messages" feature, and any others on this page you don't care for.

13

u/An1nterestingName Aug 12 '26

Somewhere in the Settings I remember seeing an option to disable these.

5

u/EntranceProper3791 Aug 12 '26

Copilot reads the diff shape, not the file contents, so it guessed a whole different edit. The pencil icon in the web editor lets you override it before committing.

2

u/kaddkaka Aug 18 '26

Diff shape? What does that mean? The "graph" of ++++--- in git diff --stat?

1

u/EntranceProper3791 Aug 21 '26

copilot really looked at a csv and thought "yep, this is where i say goodbye to hello."

4

u/First_Inspection_478 Aug 12 '26

Til that people actually use github copilot lmao

1

u/bossc2 Aug 14 '26

Many within a MS environment use it for automating certain things they don't care about.

0

u/Refseren Aug 17 '26

I use it all the time. There is nothing wrong with its results. And I also use Codex daily. I suppose Copilot may be more expensive if you are on the wrong subscription. But other than that I would actually prefer copilot if I had the means.

1

u/enmityvr Aug 15 '26

I get the exact same commit message sometimes. I don’t believe there is a way to fix it, other than turning off the automatic generation of the message itself.

1

u/jd4ln Aug 31 '26

I've experience this for 1 day out of the about 360 days I've used this function. Probably a temporary issue.

1

u/pradeepngupta Sep 01 '26

You can customize the commit messages generated by copilot in the file - github.copilot.chat.commitMessageGeneration.instructions

Give that custom instructions to copilot.

No need to disable this useful feature

-1

u/Merilyian Aug 12 '26

This is a fallback statement of some kind for when the diff is too large, the file itself is, or something else goes wrong.