cwp — Copilot With Profiles

Route the GitHub Copilot CLI to different configurations based on the directory you're working in.

Why?

The Copilot CLI stores config in ~/.copilot. If you use Copilot for different contexts — demos, daily work, engineering, exploration — they all share the same settings. cwp fixes this by automatically switching configs based on your project.

Quick Start

# Install cwp
git clone https://github.com/devndive/copilot-with-profiles.git
cd copilot-with-profiles
make install

# Create a profile
cwp init demos

# Mark a project directory to use that profile
cd ~/projects/my-demo
echo 'profile = "demos"' > .copilot-profile

# Use copilot — cwp injects the right --config-dir automatically
cwp chat

How It Works

1. You run cwp (with any copilot arguments)
2. cwp walks up from your current directory looking for a .copilot-profile file
3. It reads the profile name from the file
4. It resolves the profile directory under ~/.config/copilot-with-profiles/profiles/<name>/
5. It execs copilot --config-dir=<profile-dir> [your-args...]

All arguments are transparently forwarded — cwp chat becomes copilot --config-dir=... chat.

The .copilot-profile Marker File

Place a .copilot-profile file in any directory. cwp will find it when run from that directory or any subdirectory.

profile = "demos"

This means you can set a profile at the workspace root and it applies to all nested projects.

Commands

Command	Description
cwp [args...]	Run copilot with the resolved profile
cwp init <profile>	Create a new empty profile directory
cwp --help	Show help
cwp --version	Show version

Configuration

Global Config

Optionally create ~/.config/copilot-with-profiles/config.toml to override defaults:

# Override where profile directories are stored
profiles_dir = "/custom/path/to/profiles"

Directory Layout

~/.config/copilot-with-profiles/
├── config.toml              # Optional global config
└── profiles/
    ├── demos/               # Each profile is a directory
    │   ├── config.json      # Copilot generates these on first run
    │   └── ...
    └── engineering/
        └── ...

Installation

With make (recommended)

make install                     # Install to ~/.local/bin
make install PREFIX=/usr/local   # Install to /usr/local/bin (needs sudo)
make uninstall                   # Remove cwp

Manual setup

# Option 1: Symlink
chmod +x cwp
ln -s "$(pwd)/cwp" ~/.local/bin/cwp

# Option 2: Alias (add to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc)
alias cwp='/path/to/copilot-with-profiles/cwp'

# Create the profiles directory
mkdir -p ~/.config/copilot-with-profiles/profiles

Make sure ~/.local/bin is in your PATH:

export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

Example Workflow

# Set up profiles for different contexts
cwp init demos
cwp init work
cwp init oss

# Configure your project trees
echo 'profile = "demos"' > ~/demos/.copilot-profile
echo 'profile = "work"'  > ~/work/.copilot-profile
echo 'profile = "oss"'   > ~/oss/.copilot-profile

# Now copilot uses the right config automatically
cd ~/demos/my-talk && cwp chat    # → uses "demos" profile
cd ~/work/api-service && cwp chat # → uses "work" profile

License

MIT