JetBrains Copilot

The JetBrains Copilot agent is GitHub Copilot's agentic mode inside JetBrains IDEs. It runs context-mode with the same JSON lifecycle hooks as the VS Code Copilot agent — PreToolUse, PostToolUse, PreCompact, and SessionStart — and the same f1e_ tool prefix. These four hooks route data-heavy tool output into the sandbox and keep about 98% of raw payload bytes out of your window. The model writes a program that processes the data and prints only the answer.

Install

The Copilot agent has no plugin marketplace, so install the package globally first, then configure the server and hooks.

node --version

npm install -g context-mode

{
  "context-mode": {
    "command": "context-mode"
  }
}

{
  "hooks": {
    "PreToolUse": [
      { "type": "command", "command": "context-mode hook jetbrains-copilot pretooluse" }
    ],
    "PostToolUse": [
      { "type": "command", "command": "context-mode hook jetbrains-copilot posttooluse" }
    ],
    "PreCompact": [
      { "type": "command", "command": "context-mode hook jetbrains-copilot precompact" }
    ],
    "SessionStart": [
      { "type": "command", "command": "context-mode hook jetbrains-copilot sessionstart" }
    ]
  }
}

Tool names

context-mode tools are exposed with an f1e_ prefix here instead of the usual mcp__ prefix. Recognize the tool names by that prefix — for example f1e_ctx_execute and f1e_ctx_search are the same tools documented elsewhere as ctx_execute and ctx_search.

Verify

Confirm the install with the doctor. It checks language runtimes, the FTS5 knowledge base, and hook registration, then reports anything that needs attention.

context-mode doctor

A clean run means context-mode is ready to route your next data-heavy command.

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