Not authenticated error when out of budget

[IeuanWalker]

Im out of budget, and i now get the error this error loading my application that uses the SDK -

2026-08-21 11:49:00.627 [Information] Cockpit.Features.Auth.AuthCheckFeature: Auth re-check: restarting SDK client
2026-08-21 11:49:00.627 [Information] Cockpit.Features.Sdk.CopilotClientFeature: Stopping CopilotClient
2026-08-21 11:49:10.668 [Information] Cockpit.Features.Sessions.SessionFeature: Client disconnected — resetting SDK state for active sessions
2026-08-21 11:49:10.668 [Information] Cockpit.Features.Sdk.CopilotClientFeature: Initializing CopilotClient (logLevel=info, telemetry=True)
2026-08-21 11:49:10.669 [Information] Cockpit.Features.Sessions.SessionFeature: SDK state reset complete after client disconnect
2026-08-21 11:49:10.669 [Information] Cockpit.Features.Sdk.CopilotClientFeature: SDK telemetry exporting to C:\Users\c773975\AppData\Local\Cockpit\telemetry\otel-20260821.jsonl
2026-08-21 11:49:10.669 [Information] Cockpit.Features.Sdk.CopilotClientFeature: CopilotClient.StartCliServerAsync starting Copilot CLI. CliPath=C:\Program Files\Cockpit\runtimes\win-x64\native\copilot.exe, Executable=C:\Program Files\Cockpit\runtimes\win-x64\native\copilot.exe, CliPathSource=Bundled, UseStdio=True, Port=(null)
2026-08-21 11:49:11.826 [Information] Cockpit.Features.Sdk.CopilotClientFeature: CopilotClient started successfully
2026-08-21 11:49:11.826 [Information] Cockpit.Features.Sessions.SessionFeature: Client reconnected — resuming current session
2026-08-21 11:49:11.905 [Warning    ] Cockpit.Features.Auth.AuthCheckFeature: Auth check: not authenticated — Not authenticated
2026-08-21 11:49:11.905 [Warning    ] Cockpit.Features.Sdk.CopilotClientFeature: JsonRpc.InvokeAsync JSON-RPC request finished. Elapsed=00:00:00.0791917, Method=models.list, RequestId=2, Status=Failed
GitHub.Copilot.RemoteRpcException: Request models.list failed with message: Not authenticated. Please authenticate first.
   at GitHub.Copilot.JsonRpc.InvokeAsync[T](String method, Object[] args, CancellationToken cancellationToken, Action`1 onResponseInline)
2026-08-21 11:49:11.906 [Error      ] Cockpit.Features.Models.ModelFeature: Failed to fetch model list from Copilot SDK
System.IO.IOException: Communication error with Copilot CLI: Request models.list failed with message: Not authenticated. Please authenticate first.
 ---> GitHub.Copilot.RemoteRpcException: Request models.list failed with message: Not authenticated. Please authenticate first.
   at GitHub.Copilot.JsonRpc.InvokeAsync[T](String method, Object[] args, CancellationToken cancellationToken, Action`1 onResponseInline)
   at GitHub.Copilot.JsonRpc.InvokeAsync[T](String method, Object[] args, CancellationToken cancellationToken, Action`1 onResponseInline)
   at GitHub.Copilot.CopilotClient.InvokeRpcAsync[T](JsonRpc rpc, String method, Object[] args, StringBuilder stderrBuffer, CancellationToken cancellationToken, Action`1 onResponseInline)
   --- End of inner exception stack trace ---
   at GitHub.Copilot.CopilotClient.InvokeRpcAsync[T](JsonRpc rpc, String method, Object[] args, StringBuilder stderrBuffer, CancellationToken cancellationToken, Action`1 onResponseInline)
   at GitHub.Copilot.CopilotClient.ListModelsAsync(CancellationToken cancellationToken)
   at Cockpit.Features.Models.ModelFeature.GetModels(CancellationToken cancellationToken) in D:\a\Cockpit\Cockpit\src\Cockpit\Features\Models\ModelFeature.cs:line 48

Im out of budget on my enterprise account i get the above error.
I signed out and then into my personal account, it loads without an issue.

Im unable to add budget to my enterprise account to prove that the Not authenticated error is misleading/ wrong.
But I did sign back into my enterprise account still get the same error

[github-actions]

Investigation Findings

Label applied: bug ✅

What I investigated

• dotnet/src/JsonRpc.cs — how JSON-RPC error responses from the CLI are parsed and surfaced
• dotnet/src/Client.cs — how RemoteRpcException is caught and re-thrown as IOException

What I found

The SDK faithfully passes through error messages from the Copilot CLI verbatim. When the CLI returns a JSON-RPC error with the message "Not authenticated. Please authenticate first.", the SDK wraps it in a Communication error with Copilot CLI: Not authenticated. Please authenticate first. IOException — with no further interpretation.

The root cause is that the Copilot CLI itself returns an incorrect error message (Not authenticated) when the actual reason is budget exhaustion. The user is authenticated; they simply have no remaining Copilot budget on their enterprise account. The CLI is conflating two distinct failure modes (unauthenticated vs. out-of-budget) and reporting them with the same error message.

This is confirmed by the reporter's observation: signing into a personal account (which has budget) works fine, while the enterprise account (out of budget) triggers the misleading Not authenticated error.

Why this is a bug

The error message "Not authenticated" is factually incorrect when the user is authenticated but has exceeded their budget. This causes users to waste time attempting re-authentication when the real fix is to add budget. The SDK (and/or CLI) should distinguish between authentication failures and quota/budget-exhaustion failures and surface a clear, actionable error message.

Generated by Bug Handler for #2369 · sonnet46 25.6 AIC · ⌖ 5.16 AIC · ⊞ 5.9K · ◷

[IeuanWalker]

This is the auth check logic in the application that generated the above logs - https://github.com/IeuanWalker/Cockpit/blob/main/src/Cockpit/Features/Auth/AuthCheckFeature.cs#L40