Introduction

Every week, the GitHub team hosts a live streaming event called Rubber Duck Thursdays. During these sessions, they build projects in real time, collaborate with the community, and answer questions. In a recent episode, they created a fun and practical tool: an AI-powered emoji list generator that runs entirely in the terminal. This article breaks down what the tool does, how it was built, and the technologies that made it possible.

What Is the Emoji List Generator?

Have you ever noticed how social media posts often include a neat list of bullet points, each preceded by a perfectly chosen emoji? For example:

• 💻 Works in the CLI
• 🤖 Uses AI to convert bullet points to relevant emojis
• 📋 Copies the result to the clipboard

Coming up with those emojis manually can be time-consuming. The Emoji List Generator solves this problem. It is a terminal-based application that allows you to paste or type a list of bullet points. When you press Ctrl+S, the tool automatically replaces each bullet with an appropriate emoji and copies the final list to your clipboard. The result is a polished, emoji-enhanced list ready for sharing.

How We Built It

The project was surprisingly small yet mighty, leveraging three main technologies:

• OpenTUI (@opentui/core) – to build a sleek terminal user interface.
• GitHub Copilot SDK (@github/copilot-sdk) – to provide the AI brain that selects relevant emojis.
• Clipboardy (clipboardy) – for easy clipboard access.

Using GitHub Copilot CLI

The development process began with the GitHub Copilot CLI. In plan mode, using Claude Sonnet 4.6, the team wrote a prompt describing the desired application:

“I want to create an AI-powered markdown emoji list generator. Where, in this CLI app, if I paste in or write in some bullet points, it will replace those bullet points with relevant emojis to the given point in that list, and copies it to my clipboard. I’d like it to use GitHub Copilot SDK for the AI juiciness.”

Copilot responded with a series of clarifying questions—about the tech stack, preferred libraries, and so on. One community member even suggested using OpenTUI, which the team adopted. From that dialogue, Copilot generated a comprehensive plan.md file, ready for review and implementation.

Implementing the Plan

Once the plan was finalized, the team switched to Claude Opus 4.7 (which had just been released) and activated autopilot mode. Within minutes, the tool was built and running. The combination of plan mode and autopilot mode made the development remarkably fast and efficient.

Tools and Flags Used

Throughout the build, the team made use of several features of the GitHub Copilot CLI:

• Plan mode – to design the architecture and outline the steps.
• Autopilot mode – to generate code automatically based on the plan.
• Multi-model workflow – switching between Claude Sonnet and Opus for different stages.
• The --allow-all-tools flag – granting Copilot permission to use any necessary tools.
• The GitHub MCP server – for seamless integration with GitHub repositories.

Try It Yourself

The Emoji List Generator is completely free and open source. If you’d like to build your own version or simply use the tool as-is, you can find the code on GitHub. For more details on the technologies involved, check out the official documentation for the GitHub Copilot CLI and the GitHub Copilot SDK.

Conclusion

This quick project demonstrates how the GitHub Copilot CLI can accelerate tool development, especially for small yet useful utilities. With just a few prompts and the right settings, the team went from an idea to a working terminal application in minutes. Whether you’re looking to enhance your social media posts or simply explore the capabilities of AI-driven development, the Emoji List Generator is a great starting point. Happy building!