fix: fall back to portable RID for bundled CLI lookup on Linux by SteveSandersonMS · Pull Request #482 · github/copilot-sdk

SteveSandersonMS · 2026-02-16T10:50:56Z

Problem

On Linux distros that install .NET from distribution packages (Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL, etc.), RuntimeInformation.RuntimeIdentifier returns distro-specific RIDs like ubuntu.24.04-x64 instead of the portable linux-x64. The bundled CLI is placed under runtimes/linux-x64/native/, so the runtime lookup fails and throws an InvalidOperationException.

This is a regression from v0.1.23 where the bundled CLI feature was introduced.

Fix

Runtime (Client.cs): GetBundledCliPath now tries the distro-specific RID first, then falls back to the portable RID (e.g., linux-x64) computed from OS/architecture detection.

Build time (GitHub.Copilot.SDK.targets): Always use portable RIDs derived from OS/architecture detection instead of the project's $(RuntimeIdentifier), which may be distro-specific when .NET is installed via distro packages.

Fixes #424

dotnet/src/Client.cs

github-actions · 2026-02-16T10:53:46Z

✅ Cross-SDK Consistency Review

This PR maintains cross-SDK consistency. The changes address a .NET-specific runtime identifier (RID) issue that does not affect the other SDK implementations.

Summary

The PR fixes a bug where the .NET SDK fails to locate the bundled CLI on Linux distributions that return distro-specific RIDs (e.g., ubuntu.24.04-x64) instead of portable RIDs (e.g., linux-x64). The fix adds a fallback mechanism to try portable RIDs when the distro-specific path doesn't exist.

Why Other SDKs Are Not Affected

Python SDK: Bundles the CLI directly in copilot/bin/ without platform-specific subdirectories. Uses simple sys.platform detection.
Go SDK: Installs the embedded CLI to a user cache directory without runtime-specific subdirectories. Platform detection uses runtime.GOOS.
Node.js SDK: Relies on npm's package resolution for the @github/copilot package, which handles platform-specific distribution automatically.

Only the .NET SDK uses .NET's RID-based runtime asset resolution system (runtimes/{rid}/native/), so this is an appropriate language-specific fix with no cross-SDK consistency implications.

This automated review checks for feature parity and API consistency across all four SDK implementations (Node.js, Python, Go, and .NET).

AI generated by SDK Consistency Review Agent

Copilot

Pull request overview

This PR fixes bundled Copilot CLI discovery on Linux (and other OSes with non-portable RuntimeIdentifier values) by ensuring the .NET SDK prefers portable RIDs (e.g. linux-x64) when locating/copying the bundled CLI.

Changes:

Update CopilotClient bundled CLI lookup to try the runtime-reported RID first, then fall back to a computed portable RID.
Update MSBuild targets to derive _CopilotRid from OS/architecture detection rather than $(RuntimeIdentifier), aiming for consistent runtimes/<portableRid>/native output paths.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

File	Description
`dotnet/src/build/GitHub.Copilot.SDK.targets`	Changes RID resolution for download/copy output paths to always prefer portable RIDs.
`dotnet/src/Client.cs`	Adds portable-RID fallback when resolving the bundled CLI path at runtime.

Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)

dotnet/src/Client.cs:1037

The new RID-fallback logic is behaviorally important (it changes how the client locates/launches the bundled CLI) but isn’t covered by tests. Since ClientTests already focus on CLI startup behavior, it would be valuable to add a unit/integration test that exercises the fallback (e.g., by factoring RID resolution / base directory lookup behind an internal seam so tests can simulate a distro-specific RID and verify it falls back to linux-x64 / win-x64).

        // Fall back to portable RID (e.g., linux-x64) when distro-specific RID
        // (e.g., ubuntu.24.04-x64) doesn't match the bundled path.
        var portableRid = GetPortableRid();
        if (portableRid != null && portableRid != rid)
        {
            var portablePath = Path.Combine(AppContext.BaseDirectory, "runtimes", portableRid, "native", binaryName);
            if (File.Exists(portablePath))
            {
                return portablePath;
            }
        }

        return null;
    }

    private static string? GetPortableRid()
    {
        string os;
        if (OperatingSystem.IsWindows()) os = "win";
        else if (OperatingSystem.IsLinux()) os = "linux";
        else if (OperatingSystem.IsMacOS()) os = "osx";
        else return null;

        var arch = System.Runtime.InteropServices.RuntimeInformation.OSArchitecture switch
        {
            System.Runtime.InteropServices.Architecture.X64 => "x64",
            System.Runtime.InteropServices.Architecture.Arm64 => "arm64",
            _ => null,
        };

        return arch != null ? $"{os}-{arch}" : null;

Copilot · 2026-02-16T10:54:10Z

dotnet/src/build/GitHub.Copilot.SDK.targets

  <PropertyGroup>
-    <_CopilotRid Condition="'$(RuntimeIdentifier)' != ''">$(RuntimeIdentifier)</_CopilotRid>
-    <_CopilotRid Condition="'$(_CopilotRid)' == '' And $([MSBuild]::IsOSPlatform('Windows')) And '$([System.Runtime.InteropServices.RuntimeInformation]::OSArchitecture)' == 'X64'">win-x64</_CopilotRid>
+    <_CopilotRid Condition="$([MSBuild]::IsOSPlatform('Windows')) And '$([System.Runtime.InteropServices.RuntimeInformation]::OSArchitecture)' == 'X64'">win-x64</_CopilotRid>


Removing the $(RuntimeIdentifier) override means consuming projects that explicitly build/publish for a different RID (e.g. dotnet publish -r win-x64 on Linux, or CI cross-target builds) will still download/copy the CLI for the build host OS/arch, and place it under runtimes/<hostRid>/native. This produces incorrect outputs for cross-RID builds. Consider honoring $(RuntimeIdentifier) when it is one of the supported portable RIDs (win-x64/win-arm64/linux-x64/linux-arm64/osx-x64/osx-arm64), and only falling back to OS/arch detection when $(RuntimeIdentifier) is empty or distro-specific (e.g. contains a dot like ubuntu.24.04-x64).

Suggested change

<_CopilotRid Condition="$([MSBuild]::IsOSPlatform('Windows')) And '$([System.Runtime.InteropServices.RuntimeInformation]::OSArchitecture)' == 'X64'">win-x64</_CopilotRid>



<_CopilotRid Condition="'$(RuntimeIdentifier)' == 'win-x64'">win-x64</_CopilotRid>

<_CopilotRid Condition="'$(RuntimeIdentifier)' == 'win-arm64'">win-arm64</_CopilotRid>

<_CopilotRid Condition="'$(RuntimeIdentifier)' == 'linux-x64'">linux-x64</_CopilotRid>

<_CopilotRid Condition="'$(RuntimeIdentifier)' == 'linux-arm64'">linux-arm64</_CopilotRid>

<_CopilotRid Condition="'$(RuntimeIdentifier)' == 'osx-x64'">osx-x64</_CopilotRid>

<_CopilotRid Condition="'$(RuntimeIdentifier)' == 'osx-arm64'">osx-arm64</_CopilotRid>



<_CopilotRid Condition="'$(_CopilotRid)' == '' And $([MSBuild]::IsOSPlatform('Windows')) And '$([System.Runtime.InteropServices.RuntimeInformation]::OSArchitecture)' == 'X64'">win-x64</_CopilotRid>

Addressed. We now parse OS from the RID prefix (win*->win, osx*->osx, else->linux) and arch from the suffix (-x64/-arm64), so cross-compile works correctly. Distro-specific RIDs like ubuntu.24.04-x64 normalize to linux-x64. When no RID is set, we use NETCoreSdkPortableRuntimeIdentifier.

Copilot · 2026-02-16T10:54:10Z

dotnet/src/Client.cs

        var binaryName = OperatingSystem.IsWindows() ? "copilot.exe" : "copilot";
        var rid = Path.GetFileName(System.Runtime.InteropServices.RuntimeInformation.RuntimeIdentifier);
        searchedPath = Path.Combine(AppContext.BaseDirectory, "runtimes", rid, "native", binaryName);
-        return File.Exists(searchedPath) ? searchedPath : null;
+        if (File.Exists(searchedPath))
+        {
+            return searchedPath;
+        }
+
+        // Fall back to portable RID (e.g., linux-x64) when distro-specific RID
+        // (e.g., ubuntu.24.04-x64) doesn't match the bundled path.
+        var portableRid = GetPortableRid();
+        if (portableRid != null && portableRid != rid)
+        {
+            var portablePath = Path.Combine(AppContext.BaseDirectory, "runtimes", portableRid, "native", binaryName);
+            if (File.Exists(portablePath))
+            {
+                return portablePath;
+            }
+        }
+
+        return null;


searchedPath is only set to the initial RID-specific path. If the portable RID fallback is also attempted and fails, the thrown error will still report only the first path, which can be misleading when debugging. Consider updating searchedPath to reflect the final attempted path, or include both attempted locations in the message (e.g. RID-specific and portable).

This issue also appears on line 1007 of the same file.

No longer applicable. The code was simplified to attempt only a single path using the portable RID from GetPortableRid(), so searchedPath always reflects the actual path checked.

On Linux distros that install .NET from distribution packages (Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL, etc.), RuntimeInformation.RuntimeIdentifier returns distro-specific RIDs like ubuntu.24.04-x64 instead of the portable linux-x64. The bundled CLI is placed under runtimes/linux-x64/native/, so the lookup fails and throws. Fix both the runtime lookup and build-time RID resolution: - Client.cs: GetBundledCliPath now falls back to the portable RID (e.g., linux-x64) when the distro-specific RID path doesn't exist. - GitHub.Copilot.SDK.targets: Always use portable RIDs derived from OS/architecture detection instead of the project's RuntimeIdentifier, which may be distro-specific. Fixes #424 Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

SteveSandersonMS requested a review from a team as a code owner February 16, 2026 10:50

Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings February 16, 2026 10:50

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of SteveSandersonMS February 16, 2026 10:51 View session

github-code-quality bot found potential problems Feb 16, 2026

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dotnet/src/Client.cs Fixed Show fixed Hide fixed

Copilot AI reviewed Feb 16, 2026

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SteveSandersonMS force-pushed the stevesa/fix-linux-rid-fallback-424 branch 7 times, most recently from 3c7afd5 to 8b5b46d Compare February 16, 2026 11:36

SteveSandersonMS force-pushed the stevesa/fix-linux-rid-fallback-424 branch from 8b5b46d to 60e6fb6 Compare February 16, 2026 11:40

SteveSandersonMS merged commit 304d812 into main Feb 16, 2026
22 checks passed

SteveSandersonMS deleted the stevesa/fix-linux-rid-fallback-424 branch February 16, 2026 11:45

This was referenced Feb 16, 2026

Bump GitHub.Copilot.SDK from 0.1.23 to 0.1.24 dariuszparys/coralph#81

Closed

Bump GitHub.Copilot.SDK from 0.1.23 to 0.1.24 sikebe-demo/copilot-sdk-playground#71

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Bump GitHub.Copilot.SDK from 0.1.23 to 0.1.25 dariuszparys/coralph#82

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This was referenced Feb 23, 2026

chore: sync upstream main (29 commits) #538

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chore: sync upstream main (29 commits) yazelin/copilot-sdk-acp#23

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fix: fall back to portable RID for bundled CLI lookup on Linux#482

fix: fall back to portable RID for bundled CLI lookup on Linux#482
SteveSandersonMS merged 1 commit intomainfrom
stevesa/fix-linux-rid-fallback-424

SteveSandersonMS commented Feb 16, 2026

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-    <_CopilotRid Condition="$([MSBuild]::IsOSPlatform('Windows')) And '$([System.Runtime.InteropServices.RuntimeInformation]::OSArchitecture)' == 'X64'">win-x64</_CopilotRid>
+    <!-- Prefer consuming project's portable RuntimeIdentifier when available -->
+    <_CopilotRid Condition="'$(RuntimeIdentifier)' == 'win-x64'">win-x64</_CopilotRid>
+    <_CopilotRid Condition="'$(RuntimeIdentifier)' == 'win-arm64'">win-arm64</_CopilotRid>
+    <_CopilotRid Condition="'$(RuntimeIdentifier)' == 'linux-x64'">linux-x64</_CopilotRid>
+    <_CopilotRid Condition="'$(RuntimeIdentifier)' == 'linux-arm64'">linux-arm64</_CopilotRid>
+    <_CopilotRid Condition="'$(RuntimeIdentifier)' == 'osx-x64'">osx-x64</_CopilotRid>
+    <_CopilotRid Condition="'$(RuntimeIdentifier)' == 'osx-arm64'">osx-arm64</_CopilotRid>
+    <!-- Fallback to build host OS/arch when RuntimeIdentifier is empty or distro-specific -->
+    <_CopilotRid Condition="'$(_CopilotRid)' == '' And $([MSBuild]::IsOSPlatform('Windows')) And '$([System.Runtime.InteropServices.RuntimeInformation]::OSArchitecture)' == 'X64'">win-x64</_CopilotRid>

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SteveSandersonMS commented Feb 16, 2026

Problem

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github-actions bot commented Feb 16, 2026

✅ Cross-SDK Consistency Review

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