Run Ollama models with full tool and vision support inside GitHub Copilot Chat

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🌐 Ollama • 📖 Ollama Repo • 📚 Model Library

Opilot integrates the full Ollama ecosystem — local models, cloud models, and the Ollama model library — directly into VS Code's Copilot Chat interface. Your conversations never leave your machine when using local models, and you can switch between models without leaving the editor.

Key Features

• 🦙 All Ollama Models — Use any model from the Ollama Library, including Cloud models (after ollama login), as first-class Copilot chat models and as the @ollama participant
• 🛠️ Model Management Sidebar — Pull, run, inspect, stop, and delete models from a dedicated Ollama activity bar panel with live status badges
• 💬 Chat Participant — Invoke @ollama in Copilot Chat for a dedicated, history-aware conversation with your chosen local model
• 📝 Modelfile Manager — Create, edit, and build custom Ollama modelfiles with syntax highlighting, hover documentation, and autocomplete
• ⌨️ Inline Code Completions — Get fill-in-the-middle code suggestions powered by a local Ollama model as you type
• 🔧 Tool Calling — Full tool/function-calling support for agentic workflows with compatible models (MCP servers, VS Code commands, custom skills)
• 🖼️ Vision Support — Image input for models with vision capabilities; non-vision models automatically have images stripped to avoid prompt overflow
• 💭 Thinking Models — Extended reasoning with collapsible "Thinking" and "Response" sections for models that expose chain-of-thought (e.g., DeepSeek-R1, Qwen QwQ, Kimi)
• 🏠 Local Execution & Privacy — Local models run entirely on your machine; no data is sent to any external service
• ⚡ Streaming — Real-time token streaming for low-latency responses in both the chat participant and provider paths
• 🔒 Secure Token Storage — Authentication tokens for remote Ollama instances are stored in VS Code's encrypted secrets API

Requirements

• VS Code 1.109.0 or higher
• GitHub Copilot Chat extension installed and active
• Ollama installed locally (Download) or a remote Ollama instance you control
• For cloud models: run ollama login to authenticate

Quick Start

1. Install Ollama and start it (ollama serve or open the app)
2. Install Opilot from the VS Code Marketplace (or install the .vsix file)
3. The Ollama icon appears in the activity bar — click it to open the sidebar
4. Pull a model from the Library panel (e.g., llama3.2:3b)
5. Open Copilot Chat, click the model picker, and select your Ollama model — or type @ollama to chat

→ Full Getting Started guide

About Ollama

Ollama is an open-source tool for running large language models locally. It provides a simple API, a growing library of pre-quantized models, and support for custom modelfiles to define personas and fine-tuned configurations.

Why local models?

• ✅ Complete privacy — no conversations leave your machine
• ✅ No per-token billing
• ✅ Works offline
• ✅ Fine-grained control over model parameters
• ✅ Experiment with cutting-edge open-source models