8 Things You Need to Know About Building an Emoji List Generator with GitHub Copilot CLI
Every week, the GitHub team hosts a live stream called Rubber Duck Thursdays, where they build projects, co-work with the community, and answer questions. Recently, they demonstrated something both fun and practical: an emoji list generator powered by the GitHub Copilot CLI. If you've ever struggled to find the perfect emoji for a tweet or release note, this project is for you. Below, we break down the eight most important aspects of how it was built, what it does, and how you can create your own.
1. The Problem: Slow Emoji Selection
In the fast-paced world of social media and shipping products, coming up with the right emoji for bullet points can be surprisingly slow. The team wanted a tool that would automatically convert a plain list of bullet points into a list with relevant emojis. The result? A CLI-based app that takes your text, intelligently suggests emojis using AI, and copies the final list to your clipboard—all in seconds. This eliminates the friction of manually searching for emojis and keeps you in the flow.
2. The Project: Emoji List Generator in the Terminal
The Emoji List Generator is a terminal application that works in three simple steps: you paste or type a list of bullet points, press Ctrl+S, and the app replaces each point with a relevant emoji. The enriched list is then copied directly to your clipboard. It was built during a live stream and is a perfect example of how the GitHub Copilot CLI can accelerate project development from idea to working prototype.
3. Technologies That Power the Magic
Three key libraries made this possible:
- OpenTUI Core (
@opentui/core) – provides the terminal user interface. - GitHub Copilot SDK (
@github/copilot-sdk) – the AI brain that understands your bullet points and suggests emojis. - Clipboardy (
clipboardy) – enables copying the result to the clipboard with a single command.
With these, the team had a fully functional and user-friendly CLI app in no time.
4. Building with the GitHub Copilot CLI: Plan Mode
The development process started inside the GitHub Copilot CLI using Plan Mode with Claude Sonnet 4.6. The prompt was simple: "I want to create an AI-powered markdown emoji list generator." Copilot responded with a series of clarifying questions about the tech stack, libraries, and user interactions. By the end, it had produced a detailed plan.md file outlining the entire project architecture. This feature allows developers to go from a rough idea to a structured plan without leaving the terminal.
5. Implementing with Autopilot and Multi-Model Workflow
Once the plan was ready, the team switched to Autopilot Mode using Claude Opus 4.7 (recently released at the time). Copilot executed the plan step by step, writing the code and integrating the libraries. This multi-model approach—using one model for planning and another for coding—showcases the flexibility of the GitHub Copilot CLI. Within minutes, the terminal UI was up and running, complete with emoji suggestions.
6. Key Flags and Tools Used
During the build, the team leveraged several advanced features of the Copilot CLI:
- Plan Mode – to design the app before coding.
- Autopilot Mode – to automatically implement the plan.
- Multi-Model Workflow – using different models for different tasks.
- The
--allow-allflag – to enable unrestricted tool access for the AI. - GitHub MCP Server – to manage GitHub-related operations within the CLI.
These tools together made the development process seamless and efficient.
7. Open Source and Ready for You
The Emoji List Generator is completely free and open source. The team released the source code so anyone can examine, modify, or extend the tool. This is a great opportunity to learn how to combine the GitHub Copilot CLI with other libraries to create your own AI-powered CLI applications. You can find the code on GitHub and start using it today.
8. Getting Started with the GitHub Copilot CLI
If you want to build a similar project or explore the Copilot CLI further, check out the official documentation for the GitHub Copilot CLI and the GitHub Copilot SDK. The CLI supports plan mode, autopilot, and multiple AI models. With these tools, you can rapidly prototype ideas and turn them into working applications, just like the team did on Rubber Duck Thursdays.
Ready to build your own emoji list generator? Dive into the docs, clone the repo, and start experimenting. Happy building!