Hi there,

Hi there,

I'm using the GitHub Copilot desktop app and connected a third-party model via my own API key (BYOK). The model I'm using supports configurable reasoning / thinking effort, but the desktop app doesn't offer any way to adjust it.

In the IDE clients (VS Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains), you can hover over a reasoning model and select the desired "Thinking Effort" level from a submenu. However, the GitHub Copilot desktop app doesn't expose this option at all — there's no "Thinking Effort" menu or any equivalent setting, even though the connected model supports it.

It would be great if the desktop app could:

1. Show the "Thinking Effort" selector for reasoning models that support configurable thinking effort, matching the IDE experience.

2. Allow setting a default thinking effort level for models in settings.

Thanks for considering this. Happy to provide more details or screenshots if needed.

Best regards

---
| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| App version | 1.1.5 |
| OS | Windows 10.0.26200 |
| Theme | GitHub |
| Path | /chat |
| Tenure | Week 5 |

Start at the desktop app's /chat experience and its settings, then trace how reasoning models expose capabilities and how the IDE clients present Thinking Effort. Done means supported reasoning models show a Thinking Effort selector in chat and users can configure a default level in settings, with behavior matching the requested IDE experience.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.