How long does remote workspace indexing take? Does it work?

[altjx]

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I recently tried to enable remote workspace indexing in VS Code using Github Copilot Chat; however, I have yet to get this to work once. I'm a GitHub Enterprise user, FYI.

When I toggle remote workspace indexing, it gets stuck in the "Building remote workspace index" but never progresses. No progress bars, errors, or anything to indicate something is or isn't working. This is what it's looked like for more than 8 hours:

The remote repository is about 2.5GB, but I would think that shouldn't cause it to take as long as it has.

Using the latest version of VS Code, along with Github Copilot Chat. I've tried the pre-release version of the extension and the Insiders version of VS Code, but I'm unable to make any progress with remote indexing and am just unsure how to resolve it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

EDIT (02/13/25): I was pointed to this Github issue to report this problem.

[wysiecki]

same question, my project is really small, and it is still building, can i reset this ? restart does not help.

[stevenbaker]

When It Works, It's Great ...

If we build a remote workspace index, and then wait for it to finish, it seems to work very well. "workspace" queries are awesome after it's done. It's an incredibly promising feature, but we are scratching our heads here with a few questions.

The documentation (link) suggests:

Once the remote index has been built, GitHub automatically keeps it up-to-date whenever you push code changes. You only need to run the Build remote workspace index command once per repository.

But Does It Work?

Our questions:

1. Is the remote workspace index built once per repository, per developer? Or is it shared across the entire team?
2. If they are shared, how can a developer know if their team already created a remote workspace index for a repo?
3. Is there a UI within GitHub.com to manage these or get even a basic confirmation that one exists for a repo?
4. If GitHub automatically keeps it up-to-date (per the docs), why does the spinner run for a very long time the second time you do it?

Behind the Scenes 🕵️

Trying to answer these questions on my own, I set up Charles Proxy to take a look at the traffic that occurs when you build one in VS Code. Screenshot below reveals the endpoint that the IDE is hitting behind the scenes:

https://api.github.com/repos/<org>/<repo>/copilot_internal/embeddings_index

Unfortunately, since this is an internal endpoint, it's not documented within the API reference. All of the JSON elements in the response are showing "true" or "ok" which would suggest that the index is ready to go? Yet we still get a spinner in VS Code.

Hoping the VS Code + Copilot team can help shed some light on this and open up the black box a bit! It's such a nice feature, but needs a bit more UI around it to instill confidence.

[blackmammoth]

Same here. It just spins with no success/error messages.

[anhvth]

same here, is there an option to just turn it off, it slowdown the computer

[reathh]

Same here. spinning for a couple of days now.

Repo is 120MB

[antonius-dev]

I created a new repository with one file, reinstalled VS Code on my local machine, and reinstalled the VS Code server on my remote machine. However, it is still displaying

“Building remote workspace index”

indefinitely. This issue started two days ago. I tried downgrading and even using VS Code Insider, and I reauthorized and revoked all tokens.

bwt this is my diagnostic output

diagnostic output

## Copilot

- Version: 1.267.1367
- Build: nightly
- Editor: vscode/1.98.0-insider

## Environment

- http_proxy: n/a
- https_proxy: n/a
- no_proxy: n/a
- SSL_CERT_FILE: /usr/lib/ssl/cert.pem
- SSL_CERT_DIR: /usr/lib/ssl/certs
- OPENSSL_CONF: n/a

## Feature Flags

- Send Restricted Telemetry: disabled
- Chat: enabled
- Content exclusion: unavailable

## Node setup

- Number of root certificates: 147
- Operating system: Linux
- Operating system version: 6.8.0-53-generic
- Operating system architecture: x64
- NODE_OPTIONS: n/a
- NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS: n/a
- NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED: n/a
- tls default min version: TLSv1.2
- tls default max version: TLSv1.3

## Network Configuration

- Proxy host: n/a
- Proxy port: n/a
- Kerberos SPN: n/a
- Reject unauthorized: disabled
- Fetcher: HelixFetcher

## Reachability

- github.com: HTTP 200
- api.github.com: HTTP 200
- proxy.individual.githubcopilot.com: HTTP 200
- api.individual.githubcopilot.com: HTTP 200
- telemetry.individual.githubcopilot.com: HTTP 200

## VS Code Configuration

- HTTP proxy: 
- HTTP proxy authentication: n/a
- Proxy Strict SSL: true
- Extension HTTP proxy support: override

## Extensions

- Is `win-ca` installed?: false
- Is `mac-ca` installed?: false

## Authentication

- GitHub username: antonius-dev

[Jay-sanjay]

Me as well facing same issue !

“Building remote workspace index”

[rsilva48]

Same issue here also my network has restrictions to githubusercontent.com, I don't know if this affects the remote workspace index. How do I enable the Local index, instead of the remote one?

[Vaporjawn]

I tried building a workspace with just one file and am getting the same issue

Building remote workspace index...

[nbros]

My "Building remote workspace index" has been going for days. I feel like it is completely broken currently.
Maybe they have a queue of millions of repos to index and that will take them months to get through... I don't know

[theswiftbear]

same here,never seen it working

[ExRazor]

Looks like it's not working. Everytime I'm opening my repo, I always Building the index. It's been a few days, but the remote workspace is never getting indexed.

"Building remote workspace index" indefinitely

[atzufuki]

For me the indexing worked out, but using the index with @workspace does not. I get this warning. (Using Insiders and pre-release of Github Copilot Chat)

Searching remote workspace index timed out, falling back to basic workspace search. Response may be less accurate.

[cox-michael]

It's been 5 days since the first post. Mine's been running for a couple of days. Did anyone's ever complete successfully?

[atzufuki]

The indexing completed for me in 5 minutes for a small codebase.

[bartlebee13]

I've also had mine running on and off the last few days - has anyone else found that the copilot auto suggestions are worse while this is running?

[wysiecki]

This is really annoying, i'm aware of 'insiders'-version, but c'mon. :-(

[nbros]

the official indexing documentation says it can take up to 30 minutes... yet at least some of us have been waiting for days... Something is definitely not working right.

[jamoboggins]

Happening here too, and confused why this step needs to be done client-side at all given that the workspace repositories are hosted on Github

[ScreamZ]

Is there a way to get the list of repository that have been indexed ?

[peorthyr]

same problem here, it's been like 2 days of indexing actually, with a codebase not larger than some hundreds files.

[mikehern]

Same issue. Barebones web app:

[cox-michael]

Maybe it's the type of repo? Has anyone had success with any of these?

• Personal private
• Personal public
• Organization private
• Organization public

I've only tried with org private, but maybe that's the issue...

[wysiecki]

it worked before on the same repos i'm using today, so...

[antonius-dev]

it worked before on the same repos i'm using today, so...

It worked for all my repositories while I was on the free Pro trial. However, after I was charged $10, it stopped working.

[wysiecki]

suddenly it stopped indexing after last reload, just not sure, if it is fixed, or just stopped.

[rsilva48]

Same for me, finally finished building after last update, I saw how the remaining items decreased until 0

[cox-michael]

Remaining items? Mine has no such indication. Mine looks exactly like the OP's.

[cox-michael]

Ah, I see. It's now working in Insiders, but not standard.

[cox-michael]

Update to the latest version of Insiders and it should be working!

[riyoua]

3 hours has past and I'm still getting building remote workspace index... vscode version 1.97.2 (Universal) for Mac , my repository is private - could that be the problem ?

[riyoua]

update :
After a few hours of sleep, I reopened my laptop and saw that the workspace indexing had finally completed.

[guillaumehcht]

Same thing here, building remote workspace index has been running for a day without doing anything lmao

[iuriisusukn26]

+1

[HarisM26]

+1

[laurentpayot]

@riyoua Working for me for VS Code version 1.98.0-insider (on Ubuntu 24.10).

[riyoua]

Came back after a few hours of sleep, reopened my laptop, and the workspace indexing was finally done