[Bug] Posit AI NES ghost text does not trigger in R or Quarto files

[MZelko82]

[Bug] Posit AI NES ghost text does not trigger in R or Quarto files

Environment

Field	Value
Positron Version	2026.04.1 (system setup) build 10
Code - OSS Version	1.109.2
OS	Windows x64 10.0.26200
Electron	39.3.0
Posit AI subscription	Active

Description

Posit AI Next Edit Suggestions (NES) does not trigger ghost text in .R files or in R code chunks within .qmd files. After pausing at a cursor position for 5+ seconds, no inline ghost text appears. The feature works as expected in Python files (via GitHub Copilot, which is still enabled for Python).

No NES-related log output is produced when waiting in R or Quarto files, suggesting the inline completion request is never triggered for those language IDs.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Install Positron 2026.04.1 on Windows x64
2. Sign in to Posit AI with an active subscription (authentication succeeds)
3. Configure settings as below (Copilot disabled for R/Quarto, Posit AI inline completions enabled for R/Quarto)
4. Open a .R file with an active R session running
5. Begin typing an expression (e.g., ggp) on a new line
6. Stop typing and leave the cursor in place for 5+ seconds
7. Observe that no ghost text appears

Repeat steps 4–7 in an R chunk inside a .qmd file — same result.

Expected Behavior

Posit AI NES ghost text appears inline within a few seconds of pausing, suggesting a completion based on the surrounding code and live session context.

Actual Behavior

No ghost text is displayed in R or Quarto files. No NES request is logged in the Positron Assistant output channel while waiting. The feature does not appear to be triggered for these language IDs at all.

For comparison, inline completions work correctly in Python files, where GitHub Copilot (not Posit AI) is the active provider.

Relevant Settings

"positron.assistant.enable": true,
"positron.assistant.inlineCompletions.enable": {
    "r": true,
    "quarto": true,
    "markdown": true  // added to test .qmd (mapped to markdown) — no effect
},
"github.copilot.enable": {
    "*": true,
    "plaintext": false,
    "markdown": false,
    "scminput": false,
    "quarto": false,
    "r": false
},
"files.associations": {
    "*.qmd": "markdown"
}

Additional Notes

• Authentication is confirmed working: [Posit AI] Authentication success: via Authentication extension
• Posit AI chat panel works correctly with full session context
• The Positron Assistant output channel is completely silent while waiting for NES in R files — no request is ever sent. This rules out a rendering issue and confirms NES is not being triggered at all for the r language ID
• Adding "markdown": true to positron.assistant.inlineCompletions.enable (to account for .qmd files being mapped to markdown via files.associations) had no effect on Quarto — NES still does not trigger
• A separate warning appears when using the inline "Fix" code action (✨ stars menu): Unsupported reference type: object — this may or may not be related
• The 2026.04.1 release notes state it "provides fixes for Positron Assistant and code completions in Quarto files" — it is unclear whether NES was included in that fix or whether this is a regression/separate issue
• No existing issue was found specifically covering Posit AI NES failing for R files. Issue Code completion works in .R file but not .qmd file #11580 covers a related symptom (completions not working in .qmd) but is specific to GitHub Copilot, not Posit AI NES

[georgestagg]

Hi, thanks for reporting this!

We’re still putting the final pieces into place for Next Edit Suggestions and ghost text when using Posit AI as your LLM provider. If you’d like, you can track the work at #13274 to see when it gets merged.

In the meantime, as you have noticed, you will only get ghost text and NES suggestions from the Copilot provider. You should be able to control which type of documents (including quarto) that Copilot’s suggestions are enabled for by following the Microsoft documentation for the feature, here

[MZelko82]

Thanks for the quick response and for pointing to the PR, it's good to know it's actively being worked on. I'll track #13274. In the meantime, I'll re-enable Copilot for R and Quarto as a workaround.

[juliasilge]

We'll track this in #13334.