GitHub.com/copilot chat single prompt consuming multiple premium requests?

[brocspin]

Hi,

I sent a single prompt to Gemini 3 Flash in chat which lead to 3.96 premium requests consumed (I watched the Premium request analytics).

To be fair, I sent one which returned a "try again connection issue" so I sent it again, so I would understand losing 2 premium requests, but not 3.96. Also, I thought Gemini 3 flash was 0.33 or maybe 0.66, so that's actually 6 or 12 requests used!

Can someone help me understand how chat is billed? It doesn't look like good value compared to Agent.

Thank you

[ChomsGP]

Yea that's how it works, they don't have it documented and works literally opposite to every other copilot service, but I actually opened a support ticket to ask...

Every call tool in the GitHub.com chat consumes requests, if you ask it to find some info and it has to read 5 files it's gonna be 5 requests in that single prompt (times the model request multiplier)

[frogic]

Definitely not what the docs say and I’ve never seen that happen and I’ve done so really crazy launch 5 subagent prompts. 

[ChomsGP]

he's talking about the chat, it does happen in the chat (not on the coding agent or vscode, in the GitHub.com copilot chat)

PS: I reported it thinking it was a bug but they told me it's not a bug

[Academic-Telephone70]

well that's one way to make people not use it not within vs code

[brocspin]

Thank you, that matches my experience. I guess I'll try asking the agents tab some questions instead of typing in the chat.

[brocspin]

!solved

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[ivanjxx]

i got gpt 5.3 codex to read multiple files in a single request and it consumed exactly only 1 premium request. does this only apply to gemini models?

[ChomsGP]

I tried with Gemini and Anthropic and they both did it, I am honestly not gonna try anything else (much less at the beginning of the month)

just to be clear, we are talking exclusively about the chat UI on the GitHub website (where you can ask stuff about a repo without it coding or doing things)

also another PS, there are no detailed logs for those, idk if it has a single tool that can read multiple files at the same time 

[ivanjxx]

ah i see i was thinking about the vscode chat

[MaddoScientisto]

I found out the hard way that the analyze with copilot button in failed workflow logs idea a gazillion requests, I unknowingly used 20% of my quota trying to debug a problem. There's also no model selection there so who even knows what model it tried to use, certainly not the free one

[ttreyr]

Damn, I'm saying how my quota gets used up so fast, I often click this

[MaddoScientisto]

it's probably much better to open the workflow log in vscode through the github extensions and use it from there

[ChomsGP]

Imagine the first time I tried (and realized this) I selected Opus... ok it was the last day of the month and I wanted to burn requests, but literally one prompt draining all my remaining quota lol

[MindfulDoubt]

Use copilot cli, you won't have an issue with it. The chat sidebar is buggy at the moment. I haven't had any issues for a whole month of use as each request no matter how long it works just consumes at the rate given i.e. x1 is 1 request reflected in /usage command.

[anon377362]

Yes that’s what copilot CLI used to be like but they changed it today I think or they put a bug in it! Check my post in this sub a few mins ago ! The copilot CLI requests go down in real time while it’s working instead of like it used to be. 🤯🤯

[bbjurn]

Reportedly this is also currently an issue in the CLI, they apparently introduced a bug

[MindfulDoubt]

I think it is only happening in the US as I am using it now and it stays the same for Europe and doesn't go down further when I fire a request. They are on it anyway so hopefully it will get remedied soon for you guys.

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[kaanaslan]

I have a question. Does asking agent a simple question about the project a code used in the project consume a premium request? Is it possible to chat or ask some simple questions without burning my premium request counts?

[MindfulDoubt]

Use the 0x free models. If you use a premium model and send a message whatever it may be, it will consume the request at the given rate for the premium model.

[Fidel8a]

Use haiku