Visual Studio Code Updates & Release Notes

This release expands agent workflows, improves worktree reuse, and adds enterprise AI controls.

• Copilot harness: Use the Copilot harness and get consistent agent behavior across Copilot products.
• Multi-folder sessions (Experimental): Work on tasks across multiple folders within a single agent session.
• Remote delegation (Experimental): Delegate tasks to connected remote agent hosts.
• HydraFusion (Research Preview): Let multiple models draft, critique, and revise coding tasks without coordinating them yourself.
• Shared worktree folders (Experimental): Avoid repeated dependency installs and duplicated artifacts by reusing ignored folders across worktrees.
• Enterprise controls: Ensure everyone in your org follows AI version requirements and defaults.

Copilot harness

The Copilot harness adds exciting new agent functionality to VS Code while keeping the way you work familiar. It's powered by the Copilot SDK, so its behavior and capabilities are consistent with other Copilot products, including the standalone GitHub Copilot app and the Copilot CLI.

To start using the Copilot harness, select it from the harness picker in the chat input. In this release, it might already be the default selection for you. You can continue working as you normally do.

The harness runs in a dedicated agent host process based on the Agent Host Protocol (AHP), so you can connect to the same agent session from multiple VS Code windows.

Learn how to work with the Copilot harness, or explore the architecture and workflows in the agent host blog post. If you have feedback or requests, please file an issue.

HydraFusion

HydraFusion is an adaptive model orchestration system that chooses the models and workflow for each coding task. It can solve a task with one model, escalate to a stronger model, or have another model critique and revise the result. This approach aims to improve result quality while balancing speed and cost, without requiring you to coordinate models yourself.

Eligible users with preview features enabled can select HydraFusion in the model picker.

Multi-folder sessions

Multi-folder sessions let you coordinate related work across repositories or isolated worktrees in one session. Previously, every chat in a multi-chat session shared the same folder and checkout. In this release, each chat can use its own folder or worktree without changes leaking between chats.

Each chat uses its folder for its terminal, tasks, changes, pull request, and Agent merge state. Chats that use the same folder share that state. In the sessions list, hover over a session to see a summary across all its folders, or hover over a nested chat to see details for only its folder.

Example use cases include:

• Implement a feature across repositories: Ask the main chat to work in one repository and create a peer chat for a second repository.
• Compare approaches in separate worktrees: Ask the main chat to create peer chats that each use a fresh worktree of the same repository. Each approach gets its own branch, changes, and pull request.

Multi-folder sessions are experimental and disabled by default. The settings are not shown in the Settings editor. In your user-scoped settings.json file, set the setting for your harness to true, and then create a session:

• Copilot: chat.agentHost.copilotAgent.multiRootEnabled
• Claude: chat.agentHost.claudeAgent.multiRootEnabled
• Codex: chat.agentHost.codexAgent.multiRootEnabled

New sessions pick up setting changes without restarting the Agent Host. There is no UI for adding a folder or choosing the folder of a peer chat, so ask the main chat to create the peer chat and describe the repository or worktree it should use.

Archive chats in a session: Keep the rest of a session active when one chat finishes its work. Because sessions can contain multiple chats, select Mark as Done to archive only the finished peer chat, not the entire session. To restore it with its title and transcript intact, select the Done filter in the sessions list.

Automatic Dev Container cleanup: When all sessions that use a Dev Container are inactive for five minutes, VS Code stops the container. It restarts automatically when you continue working. Marking as done or deleting the last session removes the container.

Faster Dev Container startup: Dev Container sessions let agents use your project's tools and dependencies in an isolated environment. Fresh containers can reuse cached VS Code Server and CLI downloads, which reduces setup time and repeated downloads across projects.

Choose the session relationship and workspace for delegated work: Make two separate decisions when you ask an agent to delegate work. First, decide whether the task belongs to the current session's plan or deliverable. Then specify a workspace only if the task needs repository files, and request a worktree only if file changes need isolation. Related work can still use a different workspace.

• Create a peer chat for related work: Ask the agent to create a peer chat in the current session. To reuse the current workspace and checkout, say so in your prompt. Because the peer chat shares the checkout, use this option for research, planning, or related work that doesn't need isolated file changes.
• Create an independent session for unrelated work: Ask the agent to create an independent session with no workspace when a separate deliverable doesn't need repository files. The new session doesn't inherit the source folder. If the work does need a repository, name the project or folder and explicitly request a worktree when its changes need isolation.

Remote delegation

Create workspace-less chats on remote agent hosts: Agent Host lets you run and track agent sessions on a remote host. This release adds support for running workspace-less chats on a remote host.

Select a connected host from the unified workspace picker without choosing a workspace. The Chat entry identifies the selected host, so you can confirm where the session runs before you start.

Remote folders also appear alongside local folders in the main picker. This makes frequently used remote workspaces easier to select without opening the Remote submenu.

Delegate tasks to remote agent hosts (Experimental): Your agent can delegate work to connected remote agent hosts from the Agents window, without you selecting a host in a picker for each task.

The new built-in tools let your agent:

• Discover hosts, models, resource capacities, and session load with list_agent_hosts.
• Start a session with create_remote_session. Specify a host, or let automatic placement match an operating system (Windows, Linux, or macOS), minimum memory capacity, logical CPU count, and optional model. Among matching hosts, placement favors the host with the fewest running sessions and pending creations.
• Check a remote session's status and latest response with get_remote_session.
• Send follow-up work or report results and questions back to the originating chat with send_remote_message.

The tools are off by default. Enable this setting along with chat.remoteAgentHostsEnabled and connect the hosts you want to use.

Personalize new-session welcome phrases

Personalize new-session welcome phrases (Experimental): Add some personality to the Agents window with an optional welcome heading when you create a new session in the Agents window. The heading shows one of five phrases, such as "What are we building?" or "Let's ship something", and can append your first name from your GitHub profile.

Welcome phrases are off by default. When enabled, you can use Set Welcome Name from the heading, its context menu, or the Command Palette to choose a different name. The name syncs across devices. Clear it to use your GitHub first name when available, or a generic phrase when your profile has no name.

Improved session composer controls

Improved session composer controls (Experimental): The experimental session composer layout reduces the need to move between separate parts of the Agents window. In a new session, the workspace, branch, worktree, and harness controls are grouped above the chat input.

Enable both settings to use the layout.

The unified workspace picker also has commands for moving directly to its controls. Use Ctrl+K Ctrl+F to focus the workspace picker or Ctrl+K Ctrl+H to focus the harness picker. Hovers show your configured keybindings, and each picker's context menu provides a Configure Keybinding action. These keyboard improvements require only the unified workspace picker, not the experimental composer layout.

Starting with this milestone, when you create a new worktree session, the branch picker defaults to the upstream branch of your current branch, such as origin/main. Before creating the worktree, VS Code automatically attempts to fetch the selected remote branch so the session starts from the latest available remote state.

The picker also loads branches once per workspace and filters them locally, which significantly reduces search latency, especially in large repositories.

See recently completed sessions first

See recently completed sessions first: The Done section in the Agents window now sorts sessions by when you marked them as done, with the most recently completed session listed first. This order stays the same when you switch between Created and Updated sorting and after you reload VS Code.

More reliable agent orchestration

More reliable agent orchestration (Experimental): Coordination-heavy agent workflows are less likely to stop before the work is complete. This release raises the process-wide limits for agent-created sessions, chats, inter-session messages, and recursive session creation.

For example, an agent can classify CI failures, delegate each fix to a separate session, and coordinate those sessions without exhausting the message limit before the work is complete. Reaching a limit blocks new orchestration actions but does not interrupt work that is already running.

The setting defaults to on, and changes apply without restarting the Agent Host. Set it to off to remove the orchestration limits. Confirmation requirements and input validation continue to apply.

Open a new session in the Agents window from a URL

Open a new session in the Agents window from a URL: Open the Agents window from another tool or webpage with a workspace and an editable prompt ready for review. Use a URL with the agents/new path and the optional prompt and workspace query parameters.

For example, this URL opens a new session with no workspace and the prompt already entered:

vscode://agents/new?prompt=Explain%20how%20this%20project%20runs%20its%20tests.%20Do%20not%20run%20anything%20yet.

VS Code places the decoded prompt in the New Session composer without sending it. To select a workspace, add the workspace parameter with a URL-encoded folder URI. If the URL omits workspace, the draft uses No Workspace. An existing occupied composer remains unchanged, so opening a link does not overwrite work in progress.

Persistent progress for agent responses

Persistent progress for agent responses (Experimental): Long-running agent responses are easier to follow with persistent progress. When enabled, chat keeps a progress indicator visible at the bottom until the response finishes.

Enabling persistent progress also improves the rendering and visibility of in-progress responses. Reasoning appears in separate collapsible previews, and tool calls remain visible while they run. With Compact verbosity, completed tool groups collapse into expandable summaries when response text resumes or the response finishes. Select Verbose to keep the full tool-call details visible.

Use chat.experimental.persistentProgress to turn the indicator off or choose a colored or monochrome Draw animation. The setting defaults to Draw in VS Code Insiders and is rolling out gradually to Stable.

Terminal output reflow

Terminal output reflow: Since VS Code 1.132, terminal output in chat reflows to fit the width of the output preview.

The new chat.tools.terminal.outputReflow setting lets you control this behavior. If you prefer output to keep a fixed width instead, disable the setting and scroll horizontally to read long lines. Reflow remains enabled by default.

Use multiple chats in the editor window

Use multiple chats in the editor window: A session can contain multiple chats. Until now, the main chat with its nested peer chats appeared only in the Agents window. The editor window also shows them: the Sessions view lists the main chat with its peer chats nested underneath, next to the Chat view. Select any row to open that chat in the Chat view.

Add MCP servers to portable configuration files

Add MCP servers to portable configuration files: You can add MCP servers to portable configuration files from the MCP: Add Server flow, so you can use the same server configuration across compatible Copilot tools without editing JSON manually.

For global servers, choose Copilot Global to save the server to $COPILOT_HOME/mcp-config.json, or ~/.copilot/mcp-config.json when COPILOT_HOME is not set.

For workspace servers, choose .mcp.json to save the server at the workspace root.

Hear when confetti appears

Hear when confetti appears: The new Confetti accessibility signal provides the same celebratory feedback when you cannot see the animation. The joyful sound plays when chat thumbs-up confetti appears and when you successfully mark a session as done in the Agents window.

Explain minimum version requirements

Explain minimum version requirements: Administrators can require developers to update VS Code before using AI features, for example, to adopt newer sandboxing protections. Instead of an Update Required dialog, VS Code now explains the requirement wherever AI features are unavailable:

• Chat: shows the required and installed versions, with an update action.
• Editor window: shows a banner even when Chat is closed. Other editor features stay available.
• Agents window: shows a blocking overlay, with an Open Editor Window action.

When an update is available, VS Code offers the matching Check for Updates, Download Update, Install Update, or Restart to Update action. If your organization disables built-in updates by policy, VS Code instead asks you to contact your administrator. The notices clear once the requirement is met. How VS Code enforces the requirement is unchanged.

Set a default Auto tier

Set a default Auto tier: The Auto model in VS Code can operate in different tiers, optimizing for efficiency, balance, or intelligence. Administrators can align the Auto model's default behavior with organizational priorities without preventing developers from choosing another tier.

Administrators can set the default tier for the Auto model with the autoTier managed setting. Accepted values are efficiency, balance, and intelligence.

The tier applies to new chats in the Local harness and the Copilot agent host on the same machine. The managed tier appears as Default in the model picker.

The managed tier is a starting point, not a restriction. Developers can still choose a different tier. VS Code keeps explicit and restored choices when the managed tier changes or is removed.

Capture user identity in OpenTelemetry

Capture user identity in OpenTelemetry: Organizations can attribute Copilot OpenTelemetry data to individual developers. When identity capture is enabled, Local chat sessions add the following attributes:

• user.name on agent invocation spans, including subagents and inline chat.
• process.user.name and host.name as resource attributes.

Identity capture is off by default and independent of content capture. Administrators control identity capture with the telemetry.capture.identity managed setting (CopilotOtelCaptureIdentity policy). A managed value takes precedence over COPILOT_OTEL_CAPTURE_IDENTITY and user settings. When a policy denies capture, VS Code removes identity from later exports without a reload, including identity attributes that are set explicitly as resource attributes.

This release also changes how managed telemetry settings are resolved:

• VS Code applies the telemetry block from only the highest-priority delivery channel: native MDM, then server, then file. Fields that the selected block omits are no longer filled in from lower-priority channels.
• Managed telemetry.resourceAttributes now take precedence over OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES.

Note: Identity capture currently applies only to the Local harness. Support for the agent host is tracked in #337413.

Social media

Social media: VS Code is now on Instagram! Follow @vscode.ig for VS Code updates, new features, tips, and more.

Authorization server on authentication sessions

Authorization server on authentication sessions: The authIssuers proposal lets an extension name the OAuth authorization server it wants to authenticate against, which VS Code introduced for MCP in the 1.101 release notes. This release adds the opposite direction, so a session can tell you which authorization server issued it.

If your extension talks to more than one deployment of a service, such as public GitHub and a GitHub Enterprise host, you can pair each credential with the destination it was issued for instead of reading a separate setting that the user can change independently. This prevents a valid token from being sent to the wrong host.

Keep in mind two things. The value identifies an OAuth issuer rather than an API endpoint, so map it to your own endpoints. The built-in GitHub provider populates it for public GitHub sessions as well as enterprise ones, so its presence alone does not make a session an enterprise session.

Try it out and let us know what you think in the API proposal issue. To learn how to build against a proposal, see using proposed APIs.

Deprecated features and settings

Deprecated features and settings: None.

Thank you

Thank you: Contributions to vscode include many fixes for memory leaks and improvements across various components, as well as contributions to issue tracking.

We really appreciate people trying our new features as soon as they are ready, so check back here often and learn what's new.

If you'd like to read release notes for previous VS Code versions, go to Updates on code.visualstudio.com.

Original source

Update 1.139.1

The update addresses these issues.

Release highlights

This release makes large agent session lists faster, extends Dev Container support to remote projects, and improves everyday editing.

• Remote Dev Container sessions: Run agents inside your project's Dev Container on SSH, Tunnel, and WSL hosts.
• Session list improvements: Load large session lists faster, fit more sessions on screen, and in-place session renaming.
• Editor experience: Identify wrapped lines at a glance and avoid duplicate closing brackets as you type.

Agents

The agent host runs agent harnesses in a dedicated process based on the Agent Host Protocol (AHP), so you can connect to the same session from multiple VS Code windows. Learn more about its architecture and workflows in the agent host blog post.

Run agent sessions in Dev Containers on remote hosts

Setting: chat.agentHost.devContainer.enabled (Agents Window only)

Let agents build and test your remote project with the right tools and dependencies, without duplicating toolchain setup on your laptop or the remote host. This release extends Dev Container sessions from local folders to projects on SSH, Tunnel, and WSL hosts.

To get started, enable chat.agentHost.devContainer.enabled and select Use Dev Container from the folder menu in the Agents Window. The remote folder must have a supported Dev Container configuration, and Docker must be available on the remote host.

Note: Dev Container sessions are rolling out gradually, so the setting might not be enabled by default for you yet. You can enable the setting manually to try the feature now.

Faster session list loading

VS Code loads and refreshes large agent session lists faster. The agent host keeps lightweight session and chat metadata in a central catalog instead of opening every conversation database each time the list is built. Full conversation content remains isolated in the individual session and chat databases.

The improvement grows with the number of sessions because the previous approach did work in proportion to your session count. Measured with around 645 sessions on a development machine:

Operation Before After Improvement First session listing after launch 1.3 seconds 0.1 seconds About 12x faster Refresh the session list 0.6 seconds 0.15 seconds About 4x faster

If you have few sessions, expect a smaller difference. Sessions created before this release are migrated automatically in the background.

Compact sessions list

Fit more sessions in the sessions list by enabling Compact View in the sessions list view of the Agents Window.

Compact rows show the session title at rest and reveal workspace details when you hover over or focus the row. A row expands when the session needs input or approval, so these requests remain visible.

Progress also appears on the row for the chat that owns the work. When you collapse a session, the parent row summarizes progress from its hidden chats.

Filter empty session groups

Disable Empty Groups from Filter Sessions to hide empty custom groups and the empty Chats section. This preference is stored in your profile and resets with the other sessions list filters.

Rename sessions and chats in place

Rename a session or nested chat directly in the sessions list. Double-click its title, use the Rename context menu action, or focus the row and press F2 for a session or F2 for a nested chat. Inline validation prevents blank titles, and canceling restores the previous title.

Choose how chats appear in a session (Preview)

Setting: sessions.showChatTabs (Agents Window only)

An agent session can contain multiple chats, each representing a different conversation or context. When a session contains multiple chats, choose the presentation that best fits your workflow from the session header menu:

• Multiple shows each chat on its own tab.
• Single shows only the active chat and hides the tab bar.

Switching presentations preserves your open chats, active chat, and conversation state. In Single mode, chats that you explicitly open to the side remain independent panes with their own header actions.

Pet naming contest update (Experimental)

Thank you to everyone who submitted a name for the VS Code pet. The naming contest closed on September 17, 2026, and we're reviewing the eligible entries. We'll announce the winner and the pet's new name soon.

While you wait, enter /vscode-pet in chat to meet your companion and explore all its interactions and reactions.

Editor experience

Word wrap indicators

Display word wrap indicators to make wrapped lines easier to identify. An arrow at the word wrap column on the right side of the editor indicates that a line wraps.

Improved bracket auto-closing behavior

VS Code avoids inserting duplicate closing brackets when you type an opening bracket. If a matching closing bracket exists, VS Code uses it. Otherwise, VS Code inserts one.

Proposed APIs

Access token lifetime on authentication sessions

AuthenticationSession exposes an access token but no information about how long that token stays valid. An extension that passes a credential to an SDK with its own refresh callback cannot distinguish between a token that never expires and one that is about to expire. As a result, the extension either refreshes the credential unnecessarily or lets a long-running operation fail when the token expires.

The authSessionExpiration proposal adds an optional expiresAfter property to AuthenticationSession:

export interface AuthenticationSession {
  /**
   * The access token's remaining lifetime, in milliseconds, when the authentication
   * provider returns the session.
   */
  readonly expiresAfter?: number;
}

The value is the remaining lifetime when the session is returned rather than an absolute expiration timestamp. The extension host can run on a different machine than the client, and the two clocks can disagree. Authentication providers that return a cached session recompute the value each time and leave it undefined when the token's expiration is unknown. The built-in Microsoft account provider supplies this value.

Try it out and let us know what you think in the API proposal issue. To learn how to build against a proposal, see using proposed APIs.

Deprecated features and settings

Linux desktop launcher names

If a pinned launcher stops working after updating to version 1.139, remove it and add the application again from your desktop's application menu.

The Linux DEB and RPM packages now use reverse-DNS desktop file names to align with the application's desktop identity. For the Stable packages, the files in /usr/share/applications/ are renamed as follows:

Previous name New name code.desktop com.microsoft.VSCode.desktop code-url-handler.desktop com.microsoft.VSCode.UrlHandler.desktop

Existing favorites, pinned launchers, and custom references to the old names are not updated automatically. On KDE Plasma, a stale favorite can report "You are not authorized to execute this file" even though this is a missing desktop file, not a permissions problem.

• Remove the old favorite or pinned launcher, then add the application again from the application menu. On KDE Plasma, use Remove From Favorites on the old entry, then Add to Favorites on the entry under Applications > Development.
• Update custom shortcuts and scripts that reference the old desktop file names.
• If you explicitly configured file or URL associations using the old IDs, select the application again in your desktop's default-application settings.

You can still start the application from a terminal with code. Reinstalling the package does not update saved references to the old names.

Notable fixes

• For users whose organization disables Agent mode by account policy, ensure the Welcome invitation opening is hidden and that alternative methods of launching the disabled Agents Window (for example, code --agents disallow circumvention of the control). Fix account policy enforcement in the Agents window.
• For users with enterprise-managed OpenTelemetry (OTel) settings, fix a race condition in the configuration of OTel in the Local (i.e. non-Agent Host Harness) to ensure OTel is not dropped. Fix Enterprise Managed OTel Race in Copilot Extension.

Thank you

Contributions to vscode:

• @AnupamKumar-1 (Anupam Kumar): fix(chat): preserve #file reference when editing text before it PR #333965
• @baywet (Vincent Biret): feat: adds the default openapi file match for the JSON extension PR #336273
• @brandonh-msft (Brandon H): Fix remote chat plugin paths PR #326916
• @brignano (anthony): github-authentication: skip education.github.com check for EMU accounts PR #336608
• @Chirag-Bhardwaj (Chirag Bhardwaj): Fix clearing custom terminal titles PR #336599
• @dobbydobap (varshitha): Show active editor language first in Configure Snippets PR #324369
• @emxs1 (Emma): add more fun working messages PR #335600
• @jlelong (Jerome Lelong): Latex : update language configuration PR #332303
• @joltcoke (Florian Schirmer): Guard navigator.clipboard in the WebKit clipboard workaround PR #334878
• @joshspicer: Fix permission bits in mock-policy-server file commands PR #334382
• @Muszic (Sangeet): Add upstream Cargo completion spec for terminal suggestions PR #305309
• @SimonSiefke (Simon Siefke): fix: memory leak in document drop edits PR #336025, fix: memory leak in dialog main service PR #336019, fix: memory leak in notebook attachment diagnostics PR #333383, fix: memory leak in signature help PR #336020, fix: memory leak in extension host hierarchy PR #336023, fix: memory leak in issueReporterOverlay PR #335102, fix: memory leak in workspace symbols PR #336029, fix: memory leak in extension host speech PR #336021, fix: memory leak in notification action view items PR #333340
• @yoavbls (Yoav Balasiano): Allow display:inline-block on spans style PR #180498

Issue tracking

Contributions to our issue tracking:

• @gjsjohnmurray (John Murray)
• @RedCMD (RedCMD)
• @IllusionMH (Andrii Dieiev)
• @albertosantini (Alberto Santini)

We really appreciate people trying our new features as soon as they are ready, so check back here often and learn what's new.

If you'd like to read release notes for previous VS Code versions, go to Updates on code.visualstudio.com.

Original source

Welcome to the 1.138 release of Visual Studio Code.

This release helps agents work in your project's development environment, gives Codex sessions more flexibility, and keeps completed sessions organized.

• Agent sessions in Dev Containers: Run agents with your project's tools and dependencies in a local Dev Container.
• Expanded Codex harness: Continue Codex sessions across apps, choose between Copilot and ChatGPT subscriptions, and use VS Code tools.
• Session cleanup (Preview): Automatically mark merged sessions as done and optionally delete them after a grace period.

These release notes were generated using GitHub Copilot and might contain inaccuracies.

Happy Coding!

VS Code is rolling out gradually to all users. Use Check for Updates in VS Code to get the latest version immediately.

To try new features as soon as possible, download the nightly Insiders build, which includes the latest updates as soon as they are available.

Agents

The agent host runs agent harnesses in a dedicated process based on the Agent Host Protocol (AHP), so you can connect to the same session from multiple VS Code windows. Learn more about its architecture and workflows in the agent host blog post.

Automations are now enabled by default and can be shared

Settings: chat.automations.enabled (Agents window only)

Automations are now enabled by default, making it easier to streamline repetitive tasks. You can also export and import automations to share them across different environments or with your team. Learn more about Automations in the VS Code docs.

Run agent sessions in local Dev Containers

Setting: chat.agentHost.devContainer.enabled (Agents window only)

Keep agent work aligned with your project's toolchain by running a session inside a local folder's Dev Container. The agent uses the environment and dependencies configured for the project instead of those on your local machine.

When the setting is enabled, local folders with a supported Dev Container configuration automatically show a folder menu with a Use Dev Container action. Select the action to run the agent session in the folder's Dev Container. Docker must be installed on your machine.

Note: Local Dev Container sessions are rolling out gradually, so the setting might not be enabled by default for you yet. You can enable the setting manually to try the feature now.

Expanded Codex support in the agent host

Settings: chat.agentHost.codexAgent.enabled (This setting can be configured by an organization policy.), chat.editor.codex.preferAgentHost

This release expands Codex support in the agent host, so you can keep the same coding session while changing where and how you work.

• Choose your subscription: use Codex with a GitHub Copilot subscription or a ChatGPT subscription. If you sign in to both, switch between Copilot-backed and ChatGPT-backed models from the model picker without losing the current conversation.
  • If you are not signed in to GitHub Copilot and want to use the Codex harness just with your ChatGPT subscription, you also have to enable chat.agentHost.allowSignedOutWhenUsable.
• Continue across apps: move the same Codex session between the ChatGPT app and VS Code instead of starting a new conversation.
• Interact with desktop apps from VS Code: if the ChatGPT app is installed and configured for computer use, the Codex harness in VS Code can reuse that setup to interact with apps on your computer. This works with models from either your Copilot subscription or your ChatGPT subscription.
• Use VS Code tools: Codex can use the full set of tools provided by VS Code, including built-in, extension, and MCP tools. With a ChatGPT-backed model, Codex can also use its image-generation tool directly in the session.

Continue Codex quick chats in a workspace

Last release, we introduced continuing quick chats in a workspace for Copilot sessions. This release extends the same flow to Codex, so starting project-specific work no longer means abandoning a workspace-less Codex quick chat. Ask Codex to attach a local folder, then choose whether to use the folder directly or create an isolated worktree.

After you confirm the change, the same chat and native Codex thread become a workspace session. The session retains its title, conversation history, current request, selected model, and permission mode. Codex then continues the request with access to the project files.

Workspace conversion is available for idle Codex quick chats in Interactive mode and supports single-root workspace targets. If the change is canceled or cannot be applied, the original workspace-less chat remains available.

On-demand agent SDK downloads

The Claude and Codex agents in the Agents window rely on an SDK that is not shipped with VS Code and is downloaded when you first need it. Previously, the offer to download it appeared only as part of signed-out account setup, so if you were signed in it would download at first message.

The offer now appears whenever the SDK is missing for transparency that a download is needed to continue.

When models are already available for that agent, the notification presents two options: select Download or send a message to download the SDK as part of the turn. The wording updates in place if models become available while the notification is showing.

Create pull requests from agent sessions

Setting: chat.agentMerge.enabled (optional, for Agent Merge only)

Create pull requests from Agent Host sessions in the Agents window using one form to review and edit generated titles and descriptions, choose draft status, and configure available merge options. Create the pull request directly or send the request to your agent, with your preferred options remembered for next time.

Note: The Agent Merge option is experimental and is only available when the setting above is enabled.

Keep completed sessions organized (Preview)

Settings: chat.agentSessions.archiveNudge.enabled, chat.agentSessions.autoMarkAsDoneMergedSessionsAfterDays, chat.agentSessions.autoDeleteArchivedMergedSessionsAfterDays, sessions.markAsDoneConfetti (Agents window only)

Keep finished work out of the way while preserving the conversation for later. When all of an inactive session's pull requests have merged, the Agents window can suggest marking the session as done. A first-use guide shows you where to find Mark as Done in the sessions list.

Enable chat.agentSessions.archiveNudge.enabled to show these suggestions.

To automate cleanup, mark inactive sessions as done after their pull requests merge, and optionally delete them after a separate grace period. Both automatic-cleanup settings are disabled by default.

When all pull requests for a session are merged, select Configure Automatic Cleanup in the Mark as Done suggestion to open both settings without enabling them.

Enable sessions.markAsDoneConfetti to show a confetti animation when you mark a session as done. The animation respects your reduced-motion preference.

See which sessions need attention (Preview)

Setting: sessions.showApplicationBadge (Agents window only)

See when agent sessions need your attention without switching back to VS Code, with a badge on the macOS dock, Linux launcher, or Windows taskbar. The badge highlights sessions with new results, requests for input, or pull request checks that need attention.

Enable the preview setting above to show the badge.

Unified workspace and repository picker (Experimental)

Setting: sessions.chat.unifiedWorkspacePicker.enabled (Agents window only)

Start agent work from one searchable list of local folders, GitHub repositories, Cloud repositories, and remote targets. Remote connection actions remain available from the Remote entry.

Selecting Work in Repository uses a cloud-first workflow. A GitHub repository that is not already local is selected immediately with the Cloud harness, without a clone prompt. If you later choose a local harness, VS Code prompts you to clone the repository and preserves the cloud selection if you cancel.

Customize chat backgrounds by color theme (Experimental)

Settings: chat.agentSessions.preferredDarkBackgroundImageLayout, chat.agentSessions.preferredLightBackgroundImageLayout (Agents window only)

The Agents window can show a decorative chat background behind your sessions, either a pattern of built-in VS Code icons or an image of your own, chosen separately for dark and light color themes.

Previously, the image was per theme kind but its layout was not, so right-aligning your dark background and then left-aligning your light one left both of them aligned left. Layout is now stored per theme kind alongside the image, and switching between a dark and a light theme restores that theme's placement. The two new settings replace chat.agentSessions.backgroundImageLayout.

Clearing a background also moved. Chat: Set Background... now leads with No Background, which clears the background for the color theme you are currently using and leaves the other one alone.

Response and request surfaces are opaque, so higher-contrast backgrounds do not reduce the readability of agent responses.

Improved Voice Mode session awareness (Experimental)

Navigate and monitor parallel agent work without leaving Voice Mode. Voice Mode can find recent agent sessions, switch between them by label, and report each session's status.

Deprecated features and settings

New deprecations in this release

• chat.agentSessions.backgroundImageLayout is replaced by chat.agentSessions.preferredDarkBackgroundImageLayout and chat.agentSessions.preferredLightBackgroundImageLayout, so that the Agents window chat background layout can be set separately for dark and light color themes.
• Chat: Clear Background is removed. Choose No Background in Chat: Set Background... to clear the background for the current color theme.

Thank you

Contributions to vscode :

• @denizguney (Deniz Güney Yıldırım): Update completion test for files.exclude configuration PR #332809
• @DhineshPonnarasan (Dhinesh Ponnarasan): Fix completed progress notification dismissal PR #315184
• @jacobjove (Jacob T. Jove): Fix main process OOM from unconsumed buffered pty host service events PR #323980
• @RyanEwen (Ryan Ewen): Keep Codex MCP tool progress out of the tool result PR #334053
• @SimonSiefke (Simon Siefke): fix: memory leak in markers table PR #333241
• @vladstudio (Vlad Gerasimov): Fix terminal-editor shift-drop firing on detached instances PR #318756
• @vscodebot-pr (VS Code PR Bot): fix: resolve win32 product.json path in native policy smoke fixture (build fix for vscode-engineering#3813) PR #335152
• @yutotnh (yutotnh): Force commit messages output to UTF-8 PR #331087
• @zhichli (Zhichao Li): docs: align OTel guidance with Agent Host architecture PR #335175

Contributions to vscode-chat-customizations-evaluation :

• @JakLuminth (Jacob Searcy): Fix language client startup with a log output channel PR #286

Issue tracking

Contributions to our issue tracking:

• @gjsjohnmurray (John Murray)
• @RedCMD (RedCMD)
• @IllusionMH (Andrii Dieiev)
• @albertosantini (Alberto Santini)

We really appreciate people trying our new features as soon as they are ready, so check back here often and learn what's new.

If you'd like to read release notes for previous VS Code versions, go to Updates on code.visualstudio.com.

Original source

Welcome to the 1.137 release of Visual Studio Code. This release helps you automate recurring work, continue quick chats in a workspace, talk with agents by voice, and work with GitHub issues and pull requests without leaving the Agents window.

• The Story of VS Code: Watch the VS Code documentary and discover how the editor and its community evolved.
• Automations (Preview): Schedule recurring agent tasks to run hourly, daily, or weekly, or run them on demand.
• Voice Mode (Experimental): Talk with an agent and interrupt or redirect it while it works on your code.
• Continue quick chats in a workspace: Attach a project to an existing quick chat without losing the conversation history or current request.
• GitHub issues and pull requests (Experimental): Review issue and pull request details directly in the Agents window, even when the repository is not open.
• Contest: Name the VS Code pet: Meet the VS Code pet and enter the contest to choose its name.

Don't forget to join the GitHub Copilot Day live on September 10, 2026. Learn the most effective ways to use Copilot, from agents and model choice to working across GitHub, Copilot app, Copilot CLI, and Visual Studio Code.

Happy Coding!

VS Code is rolling out gradually to all users. Use Check for Updates in VS Code to get the latest version immediately.

To try new features as soon as possible, download the nightly Insiders build, which includes the latest updates as soon as they are available.

The Story of VS Code

Discover the story behind VS Code, from its early beginnings to the platform millions of developers use today, and the community that helped shape it along the way.

Agents

Automations (Preview)

Setting: chat.automations.enabled

Automations run recurring agent tasks on a schedule, so routine work does not have to be started manually. Start with a template for catching up on changes, triaging issues, or finding bugs, or define your own prompt and schedule.

To try automations, enable chat.automations.enabled, open the Agents window, and select Automations in the sidebar. You can run an automation on demand or schedule it to run hourly, daily, or weekly. Learn more about automations in the documentation.

Automations is in Preview and is rolling out gradually to all users.

Open GitHub issues and PR details (Experimental)

Setting: extensions.experimental.enableAgentsWindowCapability

When a chat conversation references work on GitHub, the Agents window can provide direct integration with the GitHub Pull Requests extension. Select a github.com issue or pull request link to open its details directly in the Agents window, without switching to a browser. This also works when you don't have a workspace for that repository open.

To try this initial integration, install the GitHub Pull Requests extension in your default VS Code profile and enable extensions.experimental.enableAgentsWindowCapability.

Attach GitHub issues and pull requests in any chat

Add a GitHub issue or pull request as context from the Add Context... menu in any chat input, including the Chat view, Chat editor, and Agents window. This makes the issue description, comments, or pull request changes available to the agent without copying them into your prompt.

You can also paste a GitHub issue or pull request URL into the new-session input. The URL remains in your prompt and a context attachment is added automatically.

Help name the VS Code pet (Experimental)

The experimental VS Code pet is an interactive companion that reacts as you work with agents. Enter /vscode-pet in chat to meet it, then help choose its name.

From September 10 through September 17, 2026, submit a name for the VS Code pet. Review the contest terms and conditions.

Continue quick chats in a workspace

You can start a quick chat in the Agents window without associating it with a workspace, for example, to discuss general questions or ideas. If the conversation later becomes project-specific, ask the Copilot agent to attach a local folder and continue the same chat.

After you confirm the workspace and choose whether to use the folder directly or create an isolated worktree, the chat becomes a workspace session. The session retains its title, conversation history, and current request, and the agent automatically continues with access to the project files when workspace setup finishes.

Note: Continuing a chat conversation in a workspace session is currently available only in the Copilot harness.

Agent-queued messages

Keep agents working in parallel without interrupting a chat that is already processing a request. When an agent uses the send_message session-management tool to contact a busy chat, VS Code queues the message and starts it after the active turn completes successfully.

An agent can queue multiple messages for chats in the same session or another session. VS Code processes queued messages in the order they were sent, making multi-chat workflows more predictable.

Agent host

The agent host lets you connect to the same agent session from multiple VS Code windows. It runs agent harnesses in a dedicated process based on the Agent Host Protocol (AHP). The agent host's Copilot agent is powered by the Copilot SDK, which aligns the agent's behavior and functionality with the Copilot CLI, the standalone GitHub Copilot app, and other Copilot products.

We're actively developing the agent host. Learn more in the agent host documentation and our agent host blog post, where we share why we built the agent host, what it enables in VS Code, how the architecture and open protocol work, and workflows you can try yourself.

If you have any feedback or requests, please let us know by filing an issue.

Chat

Voice Mode (Experimental)

Settings: agents.voice.enabled, agents.voice.showTranscript, agents.voice.voice

Voice Mode enables you to have a natural, spoken conversation with an agent while it works on your code.

Note: Voice Mode is rolling out gradually and might not be available to every eligible account immediately. It requires an eligible individual GitHub Copilot plan and is not available with GitHub Copilot Business or GitHub Copilot Enterprise. Organizations can also turn off Copilot preview features by policy.

To try it, enable agents.voice.enabled and select the Voice Mode button in the chat input.

While the agent is speaking, start speaking or use the push-to-talk shortcut to interrupt the response and continue the conversation.

Voice Mode is aware of your active session and can answer questions about running sessions, the selected model, and attached files. You can also ask Voice Mode to start a new session. When a request is routed, Voice Mode announces whether it is sending the request to an existing session or starting a new one.

You can customize Voice Mode in the following ways:

• Enable agents.voice.showTranscript to show the conversation transcript in the chat input while Voice Mode is active. Use the Voice Mode controls to show or hide the transcript and mute or unmute your microphone without ending the voice session.
• Run Chat: Dictate: Select Microphone from the Command Palette to choose the input device used by both dictation and Voice Mode.
• Use agents.voice.voice to select the voice that reads responses aloud.
• Run Voice Mode: Show Introduction from the Command Palette to reopen the introduction, where you can select a microphone and preview the available voices.

You can also right-click the Voice Mode button in the chat input to quickly access its configuration, instructions, introduction, microphone selection, and transcript controls. Learn more about using Voice Mode.

Code Editing

Smart diff editor layout

Choose a diff layout in the same way across regular diffs, multi-file diffs, and the Agents window Changes editor. Open More Actions (...) > Diff View, and then select Inline, Side by Side, or Automatic.

The Automatic option shows which layout is active and adapts as the editor width changes. If you deliberately widen an inline diff by dragging a sash, the diff remains inline while you resize so the content doesn't shift unexpectedly.

Binary files in multi-file diffs

Changed binary files, such as images, remain visible in multi-file diffs instead of being omitted. The diff shows a Binary file changed placeholder in the file's original position. Select Open Diff to review the file in the standard diff experience, such as an image diff or applicable custom editor.

Multi-file diffs in editor windows also use the same visual design as multi-file diffs in the Agents window.

Languages

GitHub links in the Markdown editor (Experimental)

Settings: markdown.experimental.richLinks.enabled, chat.experimental.richLinks.enabled

GitHub issue and pull request links in the Markdown editor show the current title and state, so you can understand each reference without opening it first. The link updates when its issue or pull request state changes, including CI updates.

To use the same link rendering in chat, set chat.experimental.richLinks.enabled to true.

Contributions to extensions

GitHub Pull Requests

There has been more progress on the GitHub Pull Requests extension, which enables you to work on, create, and manage pull requests and issues. New features include:

• Faster opening of the pull request webview
• All github.com links in VS Code will be opened with the extension (can be disabled with githubPullRequests.openPullLinks)

Review the changelog for the 0.166.0 release of the extension to learn about everything in the release.

Deprecated features and settings

None

Thank you

Contributions to vscode:

• @accnops (Arthur Cnops): Use dedicated MAI transcription for dictation PR #334042
• @arpankanwer (Birarpanjot Singh Kanwer): fix(copilot): don't auto-retry expired vision attachments, show actionable error PR #334129
• @bstee615 (Benjamin Steenhoek): Recognize eagerness option in PatchBased02Unified PR #333606, Add PatchBased02UnifiedEagerness prompt strategy PR #333302
• @hadley (Hadley Wickham): Fix webview view badge not clearing when set to undefined PR #331019
• @jmymay (Jeremy Majewski): Add isChromeOS to platforms.ts and context. PR #309097
• @joshspicer: agentHost: managed permission fixes for shell paths and read prompts PR #333249, Managed settings: reuse cached policy more often PR #333697, Improve mock policy server troubleshooting PR #333930, Ensure managed settings stability with regression tests PR #334056, Polish mock policy server UI PR #334122, remove old tool-rename-deprecation skill PR #334279, remove example from mock-policy-server PR #334361
• @kondv: mcp: Avoid stopping servers for equivalent URI definitions PR #333443
• @leep-frog: add args to editor.action.formatDocument.multiple PR #245743
• @mcumming (Michael Cummings (MSFT)): Enable Microsoft Entra ID sign-in for Private Marketplace access PR #325331, Make extensions.gallery.authProvider policy-controlled PR #333837
• @mst-mkt (keito): Fix surrounding a selection with brackets after arrow functions (#_225916) PR #321210
• @piyushmadan (Piyush Madan): Show remaining turns to execution subagents PR #332704
• @RajeshKumar11: Fix extensions.allowed schema flagging valid version arrays as invalid PR #329744
• @rohit489 (Rohit Agrawal - MSFT): Record CAPI X-Copilot-Service-Request-Id on chat telemetry events PR #334638
• @RyanEwen (Ryan Ewen): Report a browser tool failure with an empty message as a failure PR #334311
• @SimonSiefke (Simon Siefke): fix: memory leak in git branch protection provider PR #333381, fix: memory leak in extension host pseudoterminals PR #333397, fix: memory leak in accessible view toolbar PR #333183, fix: memory leak in test results PR #333244, fix: memory leak in extension host comments PR #334095, fix: memory leak in mainThreadNotebook PR #334189, fix: memory leak in terminal profile service PR #334100
• @vscodebot-pr (VS Code PR Bot): fix: clamp inverted visible range in ListView to prevent RangeError (fixes #333230) PR #333236, fix: cancel pending single-pane docked-tab reconciles on dispose (fixes #333537) PR #333541, fix: guard null diagnostic code in copilotcli diagnostics push (fixes #333772) PR #333781, fix: skip real AudioContext in Voice Mode onboarding preview under tests (build fix for vscode-engineering#3742) PR #333858
• @wibaek (Wibaek Park): fix: avoid refocusing find input during IME composition PR #320898
• @YOSHII-Hiroto (吉井　啓人（YOSHII, Hiroto）): Support opening MHTML files in integrated browser PR #333307

Contributions to vscode-pull-request-github

• @jameswilmiller (James Miller): Always show commit SHA in tree PR #8840
• @tamird (Tamir Duberstein): Require variables for legacy GraphQL queries PR #8889, Retry review comments with smaller pages PR #8890

Issue tracking

Contributions to our issue tracking:

• @gjsjohnmurray (John Murray)
• @RedCMD (RedCMD)
• @IllusionMH (Andrii Dieiev)
• @albertosantini (Alberto Santini)

We really appreciate people trying our new features as soon as they are ready, so check back here often and learn what's new.

If you'd like to read release notes for previous VS Code versions, go to Updates on code.visualstudio.com.

Original source

Welcome to the 1.137 release of Visual Studio Code. This release helps you automate recurring work, continue quick chats in a workspace, talk with agents by voice, and work with GitHub issues and pull requests without leaving the Agents window.

The Story of VS Code

Watch the VS Code documentary and discover how the editor and its community evolved.

Automations (Preview)

Schedule recurring agent tasks to run hourly, daily, or weekly, or run them on demand.

Voice Mode (Experimental)

Talk with an agent and interrupt or redirect it while it works on your code.

Continue quick chats in a workspace

Attach a project to an existing quick chat without losing the conversation history or current request.

GitHub issues and pull requests (Experimental)

Review issue and pull request details directly in the Agents window, even when the repository is not open.

Contest: Name the VS Code pet

Meet the VS Code pet and enter the contest to choose its name.

Don't forget to join the GitHub Copilot Day live on September 10, 2026. Learn the most effective ways to use Copilot, from agents and model choice to working across GitHub, Copilot app, Copilot CLI, and Visual Studio Code.

Happy Coding!

VS Code is rolling out gradually to all users. Use Check for Updates in VS Code to get the latest version immediately.

To try new features as soon as possible, download the nightly Insiders build, which includes the latest updates as soon as they are available.

Original source

Welcome to the 1.136 release of Visual Studio Code. This release helps you finish pull requests with agents and manage agent work across complex workspaces and related chats.

• Agent Merge (Preview): Resolve review feedback, failed checks, and merge conflicts until your pull request is ready to merge.
• Multi-root workspaces (Experimental): Work with Copilot and Claude agent sessions across all folders in a multi-root workspace.
• Chat backgrounds (Experimental): Personalize the Agents window with built-in patterns or your own images.
• Chat sessions: Organize related chats in a session hierarchy and quickly see which ones need your attention.

Happy Coding!

VS Code is rolling out gradually to all users. Use Check for Updates in VS Code to get the latest version immediately.

To try new features as soon as possible, download the nightly Insiders build, which includes the latest updates as soon as they are available.

The Story of VS Code: World Premiere

Discover the story behind VS Code, from its early beginnings to the platform millions of developers use today, and the community that helped shape it along the way.

Premiere: September 4 at 8:00 AM PT. Join us!

Agents

Multi-root workspaces in editor window (Experimental)

Settings: chat.agentHost.copilotAgent.multiRootEnabled, chat.agentHost.claudeAgent.multiRootEnabled

Copilot and Claude agent sessions in the editor window Chat view support multi-root workspaces.
This capability is currently scoped to the editor window.
Agent hooks remain scoped to a single workspace folder. If hooks are detected in multiple folders, VS Code prompts you to select the primary folder from which to load them.

Redesigned new-session input

Start delegated work with less setup in the redesigned new-session input. The updated experience brings the prompt, model selection, workspace selection, and other session controls together in one layout.

Improved workspace resolution

Agents can resolve workspaces by their project name in addition to absolute paths and workspace URIs. Session tools also preserve project URIs and all working directories for multi-root workspaces.

As a result, you can make requests such as "run this in the vscode workspace" without providing a full path. If multiple workspaces have the same name, the agent reports the possible matches instead of silently choosing one. Remote workspace URIs are supported as well.

Navigate related chats and sessions

Keep related agent work organized and move between sessions and chats from the sessions list in the Agents window. Chats appear as children of their parent session, so you can understand which chats belong together without managing a collection of unrelated sessions.
Each chat row shows its own title, status, and pending approvals, so you can see which chat needs your input. Expand or collapse the hierarchy, and open, rename, move, or delete individual chats directly from the tree.
When an agent delegates independent work to multiple chats, each created chat gets a meaningful title and appears in this hierarchy.

The new session or chat is placed close to its source, and the receiving request includes a source link such as Sent by another session or Sent from another chat. Select the link to return to the exact session or chat that initiated it.

Readable breadcrumbs for session files

Files created in the internal session state directory previously showed internal session identifiers in editor breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs now use stable provider and session labels, making it easier to identify the file location without exposing implementation details.

Chat backgrounds in the Agents window (Experimental)

Settings: chat.agentSessions.preferredDarkBackgroundImage, chat.agentSessions.preferredLightBackgroundImage, chat.agentSessions.backgroundImageLayout

Personalize the Agents window with a decorative chat background: either a theme-aware pattern of built-in VS Code icons or an image of your own.
Run Chat: Set Background... to choose between the Codicons pattern and an image from your machine. The five images you used most recently are offered under Recently Used, and that list is kept on this machine only.
When you bring your own image, run Chat: Change Background Layout... to place it. Eleven layouts are available: Repeat, Stretch, Center, and each edge and corner. Moving through the list previews each layout in place, so you can judge the result before committing to it. Chat: Clear Background returns to the plain surface.
Dark and light themes keep separate backgrounds. Every dark theme shares chat.agentSessions.preferredDarkBackgroundImage and every light theme shares chat.agentSessions.preferredLightBackgroundImage, so switching between a dark and a light theme swaps the background along with it. High contrast themes suppress backgrounds entirely, and the three commands are unavailable there.
Chat content carries its own fill so that it stays readable over whatever sits behind it. Your request remains fully opaque, agent responses fade out through the padding on either side, and wide content such as Markdown tables and terminal output stays fully backed.
Learn more about personalizing chat.

Agent session notifications

Settings: chat.notifyWindowOnConfirmation, chat.notifyWindowOnResponseReceived

VS Code can notify you when an agent session needs your input or finishes its work. This is especially useful when you delegate work across multiple sessions, workspaces, or VS Code windows.
By default, notifications only appear when the VS Code window is not focused. You can configure notifications separately for sessions that need input and sessions that have received a response. Notifications include a direct link back to the relevant session, so selecting one focuses the correct window and opens the session that needs attention.

Agent Merge (Preview)

Setting: chat.agentMerge.enabled

Agent Merge helps you take a pull request across the finish line. It asks an agent to address review feedback, fix failed checks and merge conflicts, and rerun workflows. Agent Merge repeats this process until the pull request is ready to merge.
To try Agent Merge, enable chat.agentMerge.enabled. You can currently enable Agent Merge for a session only from the Agents window. Run Enable Agent Merge for Active Session or select the Agent Merge button in the title bar. Learn more about using Agent Merge.

Agent host

The agent host lets you connect to the same agent session from multiple VS Code windows. It runs agent harnesses in a dedicated process based on the Agent Host Protocol (AHP). The agent host's Copilot agent is powered by the Copilot SDK, which aligns the agent's behavior and functionality with the Copilot CLI, the standalone GitHub Copilot app, and other Copilot products.
We're actively developing the agent host. The following screenshot shows the Copilot harness selected for an agent host in an editor window:
Learn more in the agent host documentation and our new agent host blog post, where we share why we built the agent host, what it enables in VS Code, how the architecture and open protocol work, and workflows you can try yourself.
If you have any feedback or requests, please let us know by filing an issue.

Chat

Enterprise controls for dictation data

Administrators can manage the dictation model and language-model transcript cleanup through enterprise policies.
The new controls make it possible to require on-device transcription and disable language-model cleanup, so dictation remains available while preventing dictation data from being sent to cloud transcription or a Copilot model. Learn more about enterprise controls for dictation data.

Accessibility

Screen Reader Optimized badge in the Agents window

The Screen Reader Optimized badge in the Agents window title bar makes the active accessibility mode easier to identify. The badge appears when Screen Reader Optimized mode is enabled. Select the badge to disable this mode.

Editor experience

Layout density for the editor window (Experimental)

Settings: workbench.experimental.modernUI, window.density.layout

Fit more content in the editor window with the Compact layout density. When workbench.experimental.modernUI is enabled, you can choose between two layout densities:

• Default layout density is the same as the current editor window layout.
• Compact layout density removes the spacing between panels and reduces inner panel spacing.

This setting is available in the Layout Density section of the Settings menu and can also be set using window.density.layout.

Code editing

Word wrapping improvements

Injected text no longer pushes wrapped lines outside the editor viewport. Word wrapping takes the visual width of color decorators, inlay hint spacing, inline progress indicators, and breakpoint placeholders into account. Please have a look below for the before and after screenshots. On the picture above you can see that rgba is slightly cropped. While on the second picture it isn't.

Integrated browser

Spell check suggestions

Right-click a misspelled word in an editable field to select a suggested correction. In sessions that use persistent data storage, you can also select Add to Dictionary.

Terminal

Reduced delay when running commands

Terminal commands executed by extensions no longer incur an unnecessary delay when shell integration is ready under certain timing conditions. Users of the JavaScript debugger who hit this case will no longer experience a five-second delay when starting their programs.

Deprecated features and settings

None

Thank you

Contributions to vscode:

• @abmahdy (Ahmed Mahdy): Bound concurrency of prompt file discovery reads PR #331855
• @DanTup (Danny Tuppeny): Note that InlayHints with the same position are shown in-order PR #175525
• @davidbitton (David B. Bitton): Add spelling suggestions to the Integrated Browser context menu PR #333043
• @JeffreyCA: Update Fig spec for Azure Developer CLI (azd) PR #331727
• @juliagongms (Julia Gong): nes: apply supportsUnifiedCompletions on the default provider path PR #332802
• @koubaki: Update error message in inlineChatIntent.ts PR #329157
• @ktsoator (ktsoator): Hover: restore scrolling for long content PR #331439
• @na2co3-ftw (na2co3): Modern UI: Fix CSS specificity for tab action fading PR #332103
• @preitinger (Peter Reitinger): Update snippet.md PR #231790
• @remcohaszing (Remco Haszing):
  • Normalize end of line cursor move operation PR #296712
  • Fix out of bounds text selection with line wrapping PR #262910
  • Round custom line heights PR #298421
  • Expose the score function in Monaco editor PR #322959
• @SimonSiefke (Simon Siefke):
  • fix: memory leak in explorer viewer PR #332332
  • fix: memory leak in LSP terminal completions PR #332173
• @TheNotary: Update error message for unsupported skill attributes PR #328318
• @tisilent (xiejialong): update label and description. PR #219949
• @unsupportedpastels (Mark S.): Support reasoning effort in custom agent files PR #329263
• @weidehai (io): error correction instructions PR #249715

Contributions to vscode-emmet-helper:

• @danfiedler-msft (Dan Fiedler): Pin GitHub Actions to full-length commit SHAs PR #108

Contributions to vscode-livepreview:

• @danfiedler-msft (Dan Fiedler): Pin GitHub Actions to full-length commit SHAs PR #854

Contributions to docfind:

• @danfiedler-msft (Dan Fiedler): Pin GitHub Actions to full-length commit SHAs PR #62

Contributions to node-pty:

• @danfiedler-msft (Dan Fiedler): Pin GitHub Actions to full-length commit SHAs PR #958

Issue tracking

Contributions to our issue tracking:

• @gjsjohnmurray (John Murray)
• @saroasid-web (Saswwo)
• @zotabee (zotabee)
• @lppedd (Edoardo Luppi)
• @sandstrom (sandstrom)

We really appreciate people trying our new features as soon as they are ready, so check back here often and learn what's new.

If you'd like to read release notes for previous VS Code versions, go to Updates on code.visualstudio.com.

Original source

Welcome to the 1.135 release of Visual Studio Code. This release helps you continue agent sessions across applications, get a second opinion on agent work, and understand chat usage while working in a more streamlined Agents window.

• External agent sessions: Continue recent Copilot or Claude agent sessions from other applications in VS Code.
• Rubber Duck (Experimental): Get a second opinion from a complementary model to surface missed details and edge cases.
• Agents window UX improvements: Work with a streamlined side layout, simplified session controls, and session information that is easier to find.
• Detailed chat usage: View a per-model breakdown of input, cached input, and output tokens for each chat turn.

Happy Coding!

VS Code is rolling out gradually to all users. Use Check for Updates in VS Code to get the latest version immediately.

To try new features as soon as possible, download the nightly Insiders build, which includes the latest updates as soon as they are available.

Agents

Agent host

The agent host lets you connect to the same agent session from multiple VS Code windows. It runs agent harnesses in a dedicated process based on the Agent Host Protocol (AHP). The agent host's Copilot agent is powered by the Copilot SDK, which aligns the agent's behavior and functionality with the Copilot CLI, the standalone GitHub Copilot app, and other Copilot products.

We're actively developing the agent host. The following screenshot shows the Copilot harness selected for an agent host in an editor window:

Learn more from our VS Code Agent Host documentation and the video below. If you have any feedback or requests, please let us know by filing an issue.

See it in action in our Agent Host introduction YouTube video.

Continue external agent sessions in VS Code

Setting: chat.agentSessions.showExternal

The Sessions list in VS Code can now show recent Copilot or Claude agent sessions that you created in other applications. By default, VS Code shows up to two recently updated external sessions. Select a session from the Sessions list to view the conversation and continue it in VS Code with your Copilot subscription.

When you open an external session, a banner at the top of the chat lets you configure how many external sessions appear in the Sessions list. You can also use the External submenu in the Sessions list filter to choose which external sessions are shown. Change this preference at any time with the chat.agentSessions.showExternal setting.

Rubber Duck (Experimental)

Rubber Duck is an experimental feature that allows you to get a second opinion from a complementary model on the agent's work. It helps surface missed details or edge cases. You can use Rubber Duck by invoking the /rubber-duck command in a Copilot agent host session.

Learn more about Rubber Duck in GitHub Copilot CLI.

Single-pane side layout is now the default

Setting: sessions.layout.singlePaneDetailPanel

In the previous release, we introduced the single-pane layout. In this layout, session details and editors are located in a single side pane, with a shared tab bar next to chat. The single-pane layout is now enabled by default for the Agents window on desktop.

This release also improves the layout:

• Diffs use a side-by-side view when space permits and switch to an inline view when the side pane becomes too narrow. Use Always Show Inline Diff from the editor title menu to keep diffs inline at every width.
• The action bar is less crowded. Editor-specific actions for diffs, view modes, code review, and attachments move to the editor title area, while the shared header focuses on showing or hiding Details.

To use the classic layout, disable sessions.layout.singlePaneDetailPanel and reload the window.

Simplified session controls and information

The session header is less crowded, so you can identify the active session more easily and focus on the conversation.

The session title has a prominent position, while an overflow menu next to the title groups actions for creating a chat and pinning the session. Search remains available in the Sessions list. When a session contains multiple chats, chat tabs replace the single-chat header.

Session information moves directly above the chat input, where it is easier to find while you work. Pills can show changes, pull requests, issues, browsers the agent is interacting with, and artifacts from the session. For example, the Changes pill shows live file and diff counts and opens the complete set of session changes.

Right-click an individual pill to open a context menu and choose which pill types are visible. The Changes pill remains visible whenever the session has changes.

Chat

Editor-style sticky scroll for chat (Experimental)

Settings: chat.stickyScroll.enabled, chat.experimental.stickyScroll.enabled

Chat sticky scroll lets you keep the current prompt visible as you scroll through and review long responses. We've further refined the behavior to make it more consistent with sticky scroll in the editor. Enable both settings to try the redesigned experience.

View detailed chat turn usage

To give you better insight into your chat usage, we've redesigned the chat response footer. When you hover over it, the footer shows a per-model breakdown of the input, cached input, and output tokens used in that chat turn.

Sandboxing for the local agent harness

We previously rolled out sandboxing to 50% of users to validate it on a larger scale and in real-world use cases. While we didn't identify a specific blocking issue, continuing the rollout would likely require more support and follow-up work at a time when we want to preserve focus on higher-priority investments, especially in the area of the agent host and the Copilot harness. We've therefore returned the default rollout to 0% for now.

Sandboxing for the local agent harness remains available as an opt-in feature through the UI, so users who want to try it can still enable it.

Deprecated features and settings

None

Thank you

Contributions to vscode:

• @a-stewart (Anthony Stewart): Rename leftover respectAutoSaveConfig variable to isRefactoring PR #160703
• @bstee615 (Benjamin Steenhoek): Add eagerness option for diffpatch prompt PR #327544
• @cipheraxat (Akshat Anand): fix: center Modern UI panel title tabs in the 32px header PR #331612
• @danyalahmed1995 (Danyal Ahmed): Fix case-insensitive aggregated basename glob matching PR #316387
• @dzsquared (Drew Skwiers-Koballa): add mcp server key as description in tool picker PR #325003
• @guimmd2 (Guilherme Menezes Magalhães): Fix package.json hover metadata broken in npm 12+ PR #327951
• @jachinsamuel (Jachin Samuel): docs: remove dead Gitter badge (service shut down June 2023) PR #322702
• @jadefr (Jade Ferreira Vieira): Fix file URL to path conversion in html-language-features esbuild script PR #328557
• @jainampatel27 (Jainam Patel): Fix typo in selectionHighlightMaxLength description PR #296427
• @juliagongms (Julia Gong): nes: add optimized PatchBased02 prompt strategy PR #332018
• @n-gist (n-gist): fix languages.getDiagnostics() problem-matchers diagnostics duplication PR #290278
• @rfeltis (Ralph Feltis):
  • Remove Agents window startup A/A experiment trigger PR #331559
  • Revert chat quota trajectory nudge PR #331401
• @RyanEwen (Ryan Ewen): Do not present a failed tool call as a successful one PR #330707
• @SimonSiefke (Simon Siefke):
  • fix: memory leak in markersTable PR #327885
  • fix: memory leak in mainThreadDocumentsAndEditors PR #331170
  • fix: memory leak in settings preview indicator PR #331990
• @srikanthananthula63053 (srikanthananthula):
  • fix: use fresh service accessor when lazily initializing chat attachment context (fixes #329610) PR #331416
  • Fix section checkbox state when all items are unchecked PR #331419
• @TheRealAlexxx (alexxx): Fix typo in Settings UI description for editor.selectionHighlightMaxLength PR #332162
• @zainnadeem786 (Zain Nadeem):
  • Await Workspace Trust transition completion in setUrisTrust() PR #328626
  • Fix PowerShell quoting for runInTerminal environment values PR #331753

Contributions to vscode-windows-process-tree:

• @danfiedler-msft (Dan Fiedler): Pin GitHub Actions to full-length commit SHAs PR #91

Issue tracking

Contributions to our issue tracking:

• @gjsjohnmurray (John Murray)
• @xguarch (Xavier Guarch)
• @homeworld614 (homeworld614)
• @johnnydecimal (Johnny Noble)
• @wenma531 (noreply)

We really appreciate people trying our new features as soon as they are ready, so check back here often and learn what's new.

If you'd like to read release notes for previous VS Code versions, go to Updates on code.visualstudio.com.

Original source

Welcome to the 1.134 release of Visual Studio Code.

This release helps you work across windows, organize related chats side by side, and navigate long conversations faster.

• Side-by-side chats: Arrange related chats and subagent chats in groups for easier comparison.
• Prompt timeline: Quickly navigate across prompts and review their file changes.
• Find in chat: Search for text in the complete conversation with ease.
• Preview HTML files: Preview local HTML files directly in VS Code by making the integrated browser their default editor.

Happy Coding!

VS Code is rolling out gradually to all users. Use Check for Updates in VS Code to get the latest version immediately.

To try new features as soon as possible, download the nightly Insiders build, which includes the latest updates as soon as they are available.

Agents

Agent host

The agent host lets you connect to the same agent session from multiple VS Code windows. It runs agent harnesses in a dedicated process based on the Agent Host Protocol (AHP). The agent host's Copilot agent is powered by the Copilot SDK, which aligns the agent's behavior and functionality with the Copilot CLI, the standalone GitHub Copilot app, and other Copilot products.

We're actively developing the agent host. The following screenshot shows the Copilot harness selected for an agent host in an editor window:

You can learn more in our VS Code Agent Host documentation. If you have any feedback or requests, please let us know by filing an issue.

Grid layout for chats in a session

Keep related conversations visible by arranging chats in horizontal or vertical groups. Drag chats or subagent chats into a group to compare results or monitor work side by side. VS Code restores the chat-group layout and focus when you return to the session or reload the window.

Create a side chat to open a new conversation beside the current chat.

Drag and drop a subagent chat into a group to view it side by side with the current chat.

You can also Alt+select a chat in the Chats picker to open it to the side.

Improvements to the side pane layout

Settings: sessions.layout.singlePaneDetailPanel and workbench.editor.showTabs

The single-pane layout keeps session details and editors in a shared tab bar next to chat. This release makes the layout easier to control:

• The layout follows the workbench.editor.showTabs setting. Multiple tabs remain visible, while the single and none values use a compact single-title header.
• Text file editors use the same header structure as the Changes editor, with file breadcrumbs in the header.
• The side pane keeps its size and visibility when you switch sessions, avoiding unexpected layout shifts.

Enable sessions.layout.singlePaneDetailPanel and reload the window to use this layout.

Prompt timeline

Setting: sessions.chatTimeline.display

Long agent sessions can make it difficult to find earlier prompts and identify which ones changed files.

The Agents window includes a timeline in the transcript gutter. Each dot represents one of your prompts, and the highlighted dot marks your current position. Hover over the timeline to view your prompts, then select one to jump to it. For prompts that changed files, the list shows the number of lines added and removed and lets you open the changes directly for review.

Use the sessions.chatTimeline.display setting to show the timeline beside the scrollbar (ruler) or hide it (off).

Chat

Find in chat

Finding information from earlier in a long conversation previously required scrolling through the transcript. Use Ctrl+F to search conversations in the Chat view, chat editors, and the Agents window.

Search includes the entire conversation, even content that is not currently rendered on screen. As you move between matches, VS Code scrolls each match into view and expands a collapsed work summary if it contains the match. You can also match case, match whole words, or use regular expressions.

Editor Experience

Close other editors from a tab

Keep one editor open without using the tab context menu. Hold Alt to change the close action on each editor tab to Close Other Editors, then select the action on the tab you want to keep.

Open HTML files in the integrated browser by default

Setting: workbench.editorAssociations

If you often preview local HTML files instead of editing them, set the integrated browser as their default editor. Configure this behavior with the workbench.editorAssociations setting or from the editor header.

The integrated browser provides the same features as a standalone browser tab while remaining associated with the HTML file. To preserve this association, links and other navigation open in new tabs.

Thank you

Contributions to vscode:

• @a1exmozz: agentHost: Emit user message telemetry to CTS PR #329961
• @abmahdy (Ahmed Mahdy): Preserve instructions for terminal completion notifications PR #330570
• @benelog (Sanghyuk Jung): Fix duplicated word in Copilot prompt text PR #328961
• @cipheraxat (Akshat Anand): Modern UI tabs: reserve close-button column so it doesn't overlay filename (fix #329605) PR #330754
• @jadefr (Jade Ferreira Vieira): Feature/alt click close other tabs PR #328975
• @martincheck (Martin Check): chat: avoid splitting surrogate pairs in read_file PR #331005
• @marvinroger (Marvin ROGER): Fix crash due to undefined document.queryCommandSupported PR #330298
• @mirimadahmed (Mir): voice: honor the new_session flag on send_to_chat PR #330859
• @Shaurav-Vora (Shaurav Vora): Co-authored: Implement Ctrl+F find widget support for chat panes and editors PR #330340
• @SimonSiefke (Simon Siefke):
  • fix: memory leak in extensions view PR #330210
  • fix: memory leak in source control view PR #330241
  • fix: memory leak in code actions PR #330142
  • fix: memory leak in search view PR #330240
  • fix: memory leaks in chat widgets PR #326876
  • fix: memory leak in references view PR #330191
  • fix: memory leak in search result folder matches PR #331012
• @yzxcj797: docs: fix dead nes-video.gif link in copilot extension README PR #330992

Issue tracking

Contributions to our issue tracking:

• @gjsjohnmurray (John Murray)
• @RedCMD (RedCMD)
• @IllusionMH (Andrii Dieiev)
• @albertosantini (Alberto Santini)

We appreciate people trying our new features as soon as they are ready. Check back often to learn what's new.

If you'd like to read release notes for previous VS Code versions, go to Updates on code.visualstudio.com.

Original source

Welcome to the 1.133 release of Visual Studio Code

This release gives you more flexibility in Claude sessions, keeps long chats easier to follow, and refreshes local HTML previews as you work.

• Change model provider for Claude sessions: Switch providers between turns without reconfiguring the agent host.
• Agents window without GitHub sign-in: Use Claude with your existing API key when GitHub sign-in is unavailable.
• Auto-reload HTML files: Preview HTML changes immediately without manual refresh.

Happy Coding!

VS Code is rolling out gradually to all users. Use Check for Updates in VS Code to get the latest version immediately.

To try new features as soon as possible, download the nightly Insiders build, which includes the latest updates as soon as they are available.

Agents

Agent host

The agent host lets you connect to the same agent session from multiple VS Code windows. It runs agent harnesses in a dedicated process based on the Agent Host Protocol (AHP). The agent host's Copilot agent is powered by the Copilot SDK, which aligns its behavior and functionality with the Copilot CLI, the standalone GitHub Copilot app, and other Copilot products.

We're actively developing the agent host. The screenshot below shows how to select the Copilot harness on the agent host in the editor window:

You can learn more in our VS Code Agent Host documentation. If you have any feedback or requests, please let us know by filing an issue.

Mix Anthropic and Copilot models in Claude sessions

Previously, a Claude session ran entirely through either your GitHub Copilot subscription or Claude's existing configuration, such as an API key. Switching providers required reconfiguring the agent host.

Now, the model picker displays both groups, so you can switch providers between turns. The model you select is used for the next turn. Models under Anthropic bill your API key, and models under Copilot use your Copilot subscription.

Open the Agents window without GitHub sign-in (Experimental)

Setting: chat.agentHost.allowSignedOutWhenUsable

The Agents window used to open with a GitHub sign-in prompt you could not dismiss. That blocked anyone whose machine can't reach github.com or anyone who doesn't interact with GitHub. Users with Claude already configured with an API key who don't need GitHub sign-in had this extra step.

Enable this setting to open the Agents window without signing in to GitHub. GitHub authentication is then associated with individual agents or models instead of the Agents window. In this release, this behavior only supports Claude. Support for Copilot with your own model keys and Codex is planned for future releases.

Chat

Sticky scroll for prompts

Setting: chat.stickyScroll.enabled

When you scroll through a long conversation, you can lose track of which prompt a response belongs to. The prompt you have scrolled past now stays pinned to the top of the chat, similar to sticky scroll in the editor.

The pinned prompt shows its position in the conversation. Select it to jump back to that prompt, or use the previous and next buttons beside it to step through your prompts.

Editor Experience

Auto-reload HTML files in the integrated browser

Setting: workbench.browser.autoReloadOnFileChange

When a local HTML file is open in the integrated browser, it now refreshes automatically when the file changes on disk.

This helps you see agent edits or your own saved changes immediately. You can toggle automatic reload for individual browser tabs and configure the default with the workbench.browser.autoReloadOnFileChange setting.

Deprecated features and settings

None

Thank you

Contributions to vscode:

• @accnops (Arthur Cnops): voice: explain why a voice connection failed, Rename Voice Mode voices to approved names
• @benelog (Sanghyuk Jung): Fix duplicated word in notebook.cellToolbarLocation setting description
• @Bosphoramus (Tony): fix: add top gap for Modern UI floating panels when title bar is hidden
• @bstee615 (Benjamin Steenhoek): Add optional rejected edit memory to diffpatch prompt
• @karthikkatu (Karthikeyan M): Auto-reload Integrated Browser when previewed local file changes
• @lfraleigh (Lori Fraleigh): Add missing Azure SDK for Go modules to GoModulesToLookFor
• @mateusabelli (Mateus Abelli): Update Copilot extension links
• @rfeltis (Ralph Feltis): Add Agents window startup A/A experiment trigger
• @ShehabSherif0 (Shehab Sherif): Fix operator precedence in timeline pageSize calculation
• @SimonSiefke (Simon Siefke): fix: memory leak in PerfModelContentProvider
• @SVOG23 (Suraj Vaghela): docs: fix stale relative paths in Claude chat sessions AGENTS.md
• @vscodebot-pr (VS Code PR Bot): fix: guard against stale line numbers in test decorations (fixes #328988)
• @Xaena53 (Bedirhan ÇETİN): refactor: share the find input toggle navigation

Issue tracking

Contributions to our issue tracking:

• @gjsjohnmurray (John Murray)
• @RedCMD (RedCMD)
• @IllusionMH (Andrii Dieiev)
• @albertosantini (Alberto Santini)

We really appreciate people trying our new features as soon as they are ready, so check back here often and learn what's new.

If you'd like to read release notes for previous VS Code versions, go to Updates on code.visualstudio.com.

Original source

Welcome to the 1.132 release of Visual Studio Code

This release brings element-level feedback in the integrated browser, multilingual dictation, side chats, and Markdown diffs in the hybrid Markdown editor.

• Commenting in the integrated browser: Give agents precise feedback by commenting on specific web page elements.
• Multilingual dictation: Dictate in multiple languages with an on-device model that follows your language preference or detects the language automatically.
• Side chats with /btw: Ask contextual questions without interrupting the current agent turn.
• Markdown diffs in the hybrid Markdown editor (Experimental): Review changes in rendered Markdown while continuing to edit the modified document.

Happy Coding!

VS Code is rolling out gradually to all users. Use Check for Updates in VS Code to get the latest version immediately.

To try new features as soon as possible, download the nightly Insiders build, which includes the latest updates as soon as they are available.

Agents

Agent host

The agent host lets you connect to the same agent session from multiple VS Code windows. It runs agent harnesses such as Copilot, Claude, and Codex in a dedicated process based on the Agent Host Protocol (AHP). The agent host's Copilot agent is powered by the Copilot SDK, which aligns its behavior and functionality with the Copilot CLI, the standalone GitHub Copilot app, and other Copilot products.

We're actively developing the agent host and progressively rolling it out to users. The screenshot below shows how to select the Copilot harness on the agent host in the editor window:

You can learn more in our VS Code Agent Host documentation. If you have any feedback or requests, please let us know by filing an issue.

Agents window

The Agents window gives you a dedicated space to start and monitor multiple agent sessions.

Track session activity from the chat input

When an agent works across files, subagents, previews, and browsers, you can use live status pills above the chat input to follow its progress and quickly return to related work. The pills update with the activity for the session you are viewing:

• Changes summarizes the number of changes. Select it to view the changes for the current turn in a multi-file diff that updates live.
• Previews provides access to Markdown previews for files the agent creates or edits.
• Subagents lets you follow what the agent is doing in a subagent by opening its work in a separate chat.
• Browsers lets you follow along while the agent interacts with an integrated browser.

Switch editor types

Setting: breadcrumbs.showEditorType

When multiple editor types are available, an editor type dropdown in the Agents window shows the current editor and lets you switch between the available regular and diff editors instead of using the Reopen Editor With command. You can also change the default editor from the dropdown. The dropdown uses the right side of the breadcrumb bar, which also provides file navigation in the Agents window.

To show the editor type dropdown in editor windows, enable breadcrumbs.showEditorType.

Side chats with /btw

When you want to ask a question without interrupting the current turn, you can open a side chat by typing /btw in the chat input. The side chat shares the context and prompt cache of your primary chat, so you can ask questions about the current turn. Similarly, you can select text in a chat response to ask contextual questions about that response.

You can also share context by referencing chats in other chats, either by dragging the chat tabs into the input box, or typing #chat: and then picking the title of the chat to include.

Chat

Terminal output reflow

Expanded terminal output in Chat reflows to the available width as the view is resized. Previously, output used a fixed width, which caused lines to wrap too early and left unused space in wider views.

This improvement applies to terminal output from both the Local agent harness and the Copilot harness running on the agent host.

Editor experience

Dictation onboarding and customization

Setting: agents.voice.language

The built-in dictation converts speech to text in chat inputs, editors, and terminals. When you use dictation for the first time, an onboarding experience helps you verify the selected microphone before you start. It shows a live microphone waveform, provides a device picker when multiple microphones are available, and links to dictation settings and customization. You can reopen this experience with Voice Mode: Show Introduction from the Command Palette.

Dictation now uses multilingual Nemotron 3.5 as its default on-device model. The model keeps audio on your device and follows agents.voice.language. With automatic language selection, dictation uses your system or browser locale when supported and otherwise lets the model detect the language.

To adapt the final transcript to project terminology or formatting preferences, run Voice: Configure Dictation Instructions. VS Code combines instructions from ~/.copilot/dictation.md and .github/dictation.md in trusted workspaces. These instructions supplement the built-in cleanup rules, which preserve the meaning of your speech and prefer numerals where appropriate.

If network restrictions prevent the on-device model from downloading, the error notification provides an action to import an official Foundry Local model package from disk. During a normal first-use download, the microphone button shows progress instead of placing download text in the input.

Markdown diffs in the hybrid Markdown editor (Experimental)

In the previous release, we introduced the hybrid Markdown editor, which combines rendered Markdown with in-place editing and agent-actionable comments. In this release, Markdown diffs can open in the hybrid Markdown editor. The modified document remains editable, while gutter indicators highlight added, changed, and deleted content. You can use the editor type dropdown to switch between text diff and the Markdown editor with diff annotations.

Commenting in the integrated browser

To provide feedback on web pages, it is often useful to comment on specific elements. In this release, the integrated browser adds support for selecting web page elements and annotating them with agent feedback. You can trigger this mode by using the workbench.action.browser.addElementCommentToChat keyboard shortcut.

In this mode, you can select multiple elements and add a comment to each before sending to the chat.

Terminal

Better dictation for terminal commands

Terminal dictation applies shell-aware cleanup, so spoken commands preserve shell syntax. For example, saying "git commit dash m hello world" produces git commit -m "Hello World" instead of inserting the words literally.

Select the active microphone button to stop recording.

Proposed APIs

Configure custom editor priorities by editor mode

The proposed customEditors.priority feature lets extensions choose different priorities for text and diff editors. For example, an extension can use its custom editor by default for regular files while keeping the built-in editor as the default for diffs and vice versa.

Existing single priority values continue to work, and diff editors use explicit by default. Extension authors can learn more about configuring custom editor priorities. We plan to promote this feature to stable in the next release.

Deprecated features and settings

New deprecations in this release

• Agent host policy

The ChatAgentHostEnabled policy is removed, so administrators can no longer centrally disable the agent host through policy. Developers can continue to use chat.agentHost.enabled to choose whether agents run in the separate agent host process.

Upcoming deprecations

There are no upcoming deprecations.

Thank you

Contributions to vscode:

• @accnops (Arthur Cnops)
  • Voice: answer question carousels by voice PR #327899
  • Voice: queue concurrent question forms instead of swapping them PR #328205
• @alexander-zw (Alexander Wu): [trivial] Add example sources to docstrings in cursorEvents.ts PR #241250
• @AndyBodnar (Andy ): customEditor: fix stale cache after file deletion PR #287966
• @AntonioLujanoLuna (Antonio Lujano Luna): Preserve inbound Anthropic PDF documents PR #325833
• @Bestra (Chris Westra): Log organization resource cache creation failures PR #326958
• @bstee615 (Benjamin Steenhoek): Set default NES aggressiveness to medium PR #327049
• @denizguney (Deniz Güney Yıldırım): feat: add getAccessibilityStatus PR #328018
• @dsavy4 (Dmitry Savy)
  • Fix stableStringify treating shared references as circular PR #327398
  • Fix BidirectionalMap leaving a stale reverse entry on key update PR #327403
• @EmrecanKaracayir (Emrecan Karaçayır): Fix for missing terminal suggest symbol icon css mappings PR #293158
• @jdanbrown (Dan Brown): Terminal tab title: Show "~" instead of "$HOME" PR #275378
• @KevinWang-wpq: Remove stale secrets after decryption failure PR #324014
• @mirimadahmed (Mir)
  • Voice: warm capture before hands-free playback PR #328225
  • Make coding agent voice aware for better voice experience PR #328217
• @Moli13337 (Moli): docs: Fix incorrect directory paths in CONTRIBUTING.md files PR #325810
• @Mr-Nilarnab (MR NILARNAB GITHUB): docs: fix minor typos and grammar in README PR #325006
• @Muszic (Sangeet): fix: correct ArrayQueue boundaries in takeWhile and takeFromEndWhile PR #301119
• @ohah (ohah): fix: file-found Badge vertical PR #273098
• @peterdanwan (Peter Wan): fix: signature help's active overload not updating PR #320980
• @praneethhere (Praneeth Kodumagulla): Support COPILOT_HOME for Copilot CLI state PR #314917
• @RedCMD (RedCMD): fix: bug in Restrict continue comment PR #322668
• @rushil-b-patel (Rushil Patel (rusp)): feat: add copy button to code blocks in markdown preview PR #323609
• @samir-nimbly: Fix chat image attachments silently dropped when signed out of GitHub PR #323856
• @SimonSiefke (Simon Siefke)
  • fix: memory leak in titleBarPart PR #327552
  • fix: memory leak in notebook view model PR #328208
  • fix: memory leak in decorationAddon._decorations PR #326933
  • fix: memory leak in chatServiceImpl PR #327128
  • fix: memory leak in settings-tree PR #327909
  • fix: memory leak in historyService PR #327518
• @sricursion (Sriraj): Escape dynamic values in the customizations index PR #327475
• @thernstig (Tobias Hernstig): Fix forwarded ports status bar item to toggle the ports view PR #320090
• @Vector341: [html] fix validation error on JavaScript block comment (for #171153) PR #240932
• @yogeshwaran-c (Yogeshwaran C)
  • fix(javascript): sync JSDoc continuation patterns with TypeScript language config PR #308433
  • [json] add #region folding markers to language configuration PR #318515
  • Add package.json catalog support for npm completions and hover PR #307989
  • Show keybinding in Toggle Search Details tooltip PR #311859
  • fix(server): propagate --enable-proposed-api in serve-web PR #310207
  • fix: remove all manual folding ranges when selection is empty PR #304793
  • fix: detect interrupted commands in terminal exit code hack PR #307256
  • fix: wrap module script content in block scope to prevent false redeclaration errors PR #308027
• @zmr-233: Avoid :has() selectors that trigger workbench-wide style invalidation PR #327052

Issue tracking

Contributions to our issue tracking:

• @gjsjohnmurray (John Murray)
• @MominRaza (Momin Ahmad)
• @palinkasnorbert (Norbert Palinkas)
• @IllusionMH (Andrii Dieiev)
• @ganlvtech (Ganlv)

We really appreciate people trying our new features as soon as they are ready, so check back here often and learn what's new.

If you'd like to read release notes for previous VS Code versions, go to Updates on code.visualstudio.com.

Original source

Welcome to the 1.131 release of Visual Studio Code. This release brings more visibility into running subagents, built-in dictation across the workbench, and a new hybrid Markdown editor.

• Subagents: See a running subagent's model, elapsed time, and active tool call without opening its conversation.
• Built-in dictation (Experimental): Dictate in chat, editors, and the terminal without installing the Speech extension.
• Hybrid Markdown editor (Experimental): View, edit, and add agent-actionable comments to Markdown files in the Agents window.

Happy Coding!

VS Code is rolling out gradually to all users. Use Check for Updates in VS Code to get the latest version immediately.

To try new features as soon as possible, download the nightly Insiders build, which includes the latest updates as soon as they are available.

Agents

Agent host

As mentioned in our last few releases, we're rearchitecting how agent sessions work in VS Code around the agent host - a dedicated process that runs agent harnesses such as Copilot, Claude, and Codex, based on the Agent Host Protocol (AHP). Because a session lives in its own process, the same session can be connected to and rendered from multiple VS Code windows at once. The agent host's Copilot agent is powered by the Copilot SDK, which means that its behavior and functionality is aligned with the Copilot CLI, the standalone GitHub Copilot app, and other Copilot products.

We're actively developing the agent host and progressively rolling it out to users. To opt in, enable chat.agentHost.enabled and then select an agent host harness from the harness dropdown. The screenshot below shows how to select the Copilot harness on the agent host in the editor window:

You can learn more in our VS Code Agent Host architecture documentation. If you have any feedback or requests, please let us know by filing an issue.

More information about running subagents (Agents window)

When working on complex tasks, the agent can delegate tasks to subagents to run them in parallel in its own context window. You can now quickly see what a running subagent is doing without opening its conversation. In the Agents window, the main conversation shows the following information for each running subagent:

• The model used by the subagent
• How long the subagent has been running
• The tool that the subagent is actively calling

Select a running subagent to open its conversation in another chat, where you can review its full progress while the parent conversation remains available.

Chat

VS Code pet (Experimental)

A new highly experimental pet has been discovered in VS Code! Enter /vscode-pet in chat to meet your new companion.

Editor Experience

Built-in dictation across VS Code (Experimental)

Setting: dictation.enabled

This setting can be managed by your organization. Contact your administrator to change it.

Use dictation in VS Code, you no longer need to install the VS Code Speech extension. The built-in transcription service works in chat inputs, text editors, and the integrated terminal, with live text and controls suited to each surface. A single speech session and microphone selection are shared across all three surfaces, which prevents overlapping recordings and keeps dictated text in the intended location.

Built-in dictation uses the private, offline Nemotron model. The model downloads on first use and keeps audio on your device.

Use dictation.showTranscript to control whether the live transcript appears while you dictate. With dictation.experimental.llmCleanup enabled, Copilot refines your transcript as you speak by adding formatting and removing filler words. Transcript text is sent to a language model for cleanup. If cleanup is unavailable, VS Code keeps the raw transcript.

Platform support

The following platforms are supported for built-in dictation:

• Windows x64 and Arm64
• macOS on Apple silicon
• Linux x64 and Arm64 with glibc 2.34 or later
• Remote workspaces (because transcription runs on the local VS Code client)

The following platforms are not currently supported for built-in dictation:

• VS Code for the Web
• Intel-based Macs, 32-bit systems, and Arm32 systems

Support for more platforms and languages is a work in progress.

Hybrid Markdown editor (Experimental)

Setting: workbench.editor.markdownDefaultEditorInAgentsWindow

In this release, we introduce a new hybrid Markdown editor in the agents window. It lets you view Markdown files, edit them in-place, and add comments that an agent can act on.

By using Reopen Editor With you can switch between the text editor and this new Markdown editor, both in the Agents window and editor windows.

Accessibility

More control over terminal screen reader updates

Setting: terminal.integrated.accessibleViewPreserveCursorPosition

Screen reader users can read terminal output at their own pace while commands continue to produce output. Set terminal.integrated.accessibleViewPreserveCursorPosition to always to preserve the cursor position in the terminal Accessible View, including when new content arrives. Existing true and false values continue to work.

Terminal live updates also use a non-interrupting ARIA status announcement instead of an assertive alert. Output remains available to screen readers without repeatedly interrupting other speech.

Terminal

Control the terminal resize dimensions overlay

Setting: terminal.integrated.resizeDimensionsOverlay.enabled

If you find the columns-by-rows overlay distracting when resizing the terminal, you can disable it with the terminal.integrated.resizeDimensionsOverlay.enabled setting. The overlay remains enabled by default, and setting changes apply immediately to open terminals without a restart.

Languages

Python

Python Environments is the default environment-management experience in VS Code Stable and Insiders after its rollout reached 100% of users. Review the Python Environments rollout details and tracking.

Python projects start faster and spend less time refreshing environments. Conda discovery is deferred until needed, concurrent environment scans are consolidated, and Pylance can use the last-known interpreter while a full refresh continues.

Deprecated features and settings

None

Thank you

Contributions to vscode:

• @accnops (Arthur Cnops): voice: make passive ptt_start the canonical hands-free narration fix PR #326405
• @bwateratmsft (Brandon Waterloo [MSFT]): Add a when clause context key for detecting if an extension is installed+enabled PR #326814
• @Kaidesuyoo (Kaidesuyo): fix performance regression caused by modern UI styles PR #325985
• @mirimadahmed (Mir): Fix voice barge in regression PR #326611
• @piyushmadan (Piyush Madan): Resolve execution subagent model by exact CAPI id before family fallback PR #324859
• @SimonSiefke (Simon Siefke):
  • fix: memory leak in abstractTaskService PR #326934
  • fix: memory leak in abstractRuntimeExtensionsEditor PR #326890
  • fix: memory leak in terminalProcessManager PR #326930
  • fix: memory leak in debugModel PR #327047
  • fix: memory leak in terminalService PR #327156
  • fix: memory leak in mainThreadTerminalService PR #327155
• @SixFive7 (Jori Huisman): Honor Explorer's minItems for the Windows taskbar jump list PR #318117
• @soreavis: Git - resolve the active notebook for Open Changes / Open File PR #326468

Issue tracking

Contributions to our issue tracking:

• @gjsjohnmurray (John Murray)
• @RedCMD (RedCMD)
• @IllusionMH (Andrii Dieiev)
• @albertosantini (Alberto Santini)

We really appreciate people trying our new features as soon as they are ready, so check back here often and learn what's new.

If you'd like to read release notes for previous VS Code versions, go to Updates on code.visualstudio.com.

Original source

Welcome to the 1.130 release of Visual Studio Code.

This release brings agent host improvements, faster review workflows in the Agents window, better chat visibility, and smarter terminal link handling.

• The agent host: Run sessions in a dedicated process that you can connect to from multiple VS Code windows.
• Agents window improvements (Preview): Review multi-file changes faster with compact diffs, file-level stats, and worktree support across harnesses.
• Assisted tool approvals: Reduce approval interruptions by letting the model evaluate tool-call risk during agent tasks.
• Clickable file links in Git diffs with mnemonic prefixes: Open files directly from diff output when mnemonic prefixes are enabled.

Happy Coding!

VS Code is rolling out gradually to all users. Use Check for Updates in VS Code to get the latest version immediately.

To try new features as soon as possible, download the nightly Insiders build, which includes the latest updates as soon as they are available.

Agents

The agent host

As mentioned in our last release, we're rearchitecting how agent sessions work in VS Code around the agent host - a dedicated process that runs agent harnesses such as Copilot, Claude, and Codex, based on the Agent Host Protocol (AHP). Because a session lives in its own process, the same session can be connected to and rendered from multiple VS Code windows at once. The agent host's Copilot agent is powered by the Copilot SDK, which means that its behavior and functionality is aligned with the Copilot CLI, the standalone GitHub Copilot app, and other Copilot products.

Learn more about the VS Code Agent Host architecture.

We're actively developing the agent host and progressively rolling it out to users in both the editor window and the Agents window. To opt in, enable chat.agentHost.enabled (This setting is managed at the organization level. Contact your administrator to change it.) and then pick an agent host harness from the harness dropdown. The screenshot below shows how to select the Copilot harness on the agent host in the editor window:

As we continue to invest in the agent host, some features might only be available when an agent runs on it. Those features link back to this section and, where relevant, note any additional settings that enable them (for example, chat.agents.claude.preferAgentHost to enable the Claude agent on the agent host).

If you have any feedback or requests while using the agent host, please let us know by filing an issue.

Assisted tool approvals

Setting: chat.assistedPermissions.enabled

Repeated tool approval prompts can interrupt long-running agent tasks. With assisted permissions, the language model evaluates the risk of each tool call and decides whether the tool can run or should require your approval.

Enable the setting to add Assisted permissions to the permissions picker for agents that run on the agent host. The following video compares default approvals with assisted permissions:

Agents window improvements (Preview)

The Agents window includes several updates that make it easier to review changes and manage chats. Updates that require a session running on the agent host are called out below.

File-level diff statistics

Each file header in the Changes editor shows live insertion and deletion counts next to the file path. You can quickly assess the size of each file's changes while scanning a multi-file diff.

Compact multi-file diff view

The multi-file diff uses a more compact gutter that removes empty space before the code. File headers, line numbers, and unchanged-region controls share a consistent alignment, which leaves more room for reviewing changes in a narrow editor.

Compact quick chats

Quick chats, which run on the agent host, use compact, single-line rows in the sessions list. Regular sessions retain a second line with change statistics, status, and timestamps, making quick chats easier to distinguish and leaving more room for project sessions.

Worktree support for all agent harnesses

Agent harnesses running on the agent host support worktree isolation. The New Worktree checkbox in the Agents window was previously only supported by the Copilot harness. Claude and Codex sessions also run in a Git worktree, making it easier to spin up parallel sessions for different features in the same workspace regardless of harness.

Chat

Chat timestamps

Setting: chat.verbose

Timestamps are shown for chat requests and responses. Hover over the message toolbar to view the timestamp and elapsed time for a chat interaction. You can disable this with chat.verbose.

Aggregate AI credit usage for Copilot Business and Enterprise

Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise users can now see their aggregate AI credit usage for the current billing cycle directly in the Copilot status menu. Previously, credit usage was only surfaced when a user-level budget was configured, leaving many organization-managed users without visibility into how many credits they had consumed.

Now, when no user-level budget is set, the status menu displays the total number of credits used so far in the billing cycle. This gives you an at-a-glance view of your consumption, so you can better understand your usage patterns without leaving the editor.

Terminal

Clickable file links in Git diffs with mnemonic prefixes

You can open file links directly from Git diff output in the terminal when Git's diff.mnemonicPrefix option is enabled. VS Code recognizes prefixes such as i/ for the index and w/ for the working tree, and removes the prefix from the link target so the correct file opens.

When mnemonic prefixes are enabled, VS Code also recognizes the numeric 1/ and 2/ prefixes produced by git diff --no-index.

Engineering

The VS Code repository is compiled using the release version of TypeScript 7. We also switched to the release version of the TypeScript 7 extension. Read the TypeScript 7.0 release announcement from the TypeScript team.

Thank you

Contributions to vscode:

• @accnops (Arthur Cnops): Voice: opt out of backend auto-narration (auto_narrate: false), voice: send request_narration only after session context is sent, voice: NACK + client revalidation for dropped narration
• @ahmadawais (Ahmad Awais): Detect Command Code as an agent CLI for terminal tab titles
• @AntonioLujanoLuna (Antonio Lujano Luna): Fix BYOK Anthropic endpoints sending PDFs as image blocks
• @arham766 (Shahrier Islam Arham): chore: bump windows-process-tree to 0.8.0 to fix UTF-8 command lines in Process Explorer
• @clintharrison (Clint Harrison): Support mnemonic prefixes in git diff parsing for terminal links
• @justjavac (迷渡): Decorations: fall back to lower-priority colors
• @kobihikri (Kobi Hikri): Remove dead CODEOWNERS rules for deleted no-package-lock / no-yarn-lock workflows
• @mirimadahmed (Mir): Handle voice barge-in playback, Fix voice barge-in protocol, Voice agent send voice language locale from the client, Voice agent always on streaming mode to support barge in, Add scoped live Voice transcripts
• @pony-maggie (Lucas Ma): Avoid stale simple dialog folder updates, Allow simple file dialog to create nested folders
• @rfeltis (Ralph Feltis): Fix quota trajectory billing period calculation
• @smorimoto (Sora Morimoto): Recognise OCaml in settings labels
• @spokodev: fix: match uppercase query characters in fuzzyContains
• @UditDewan (udit): Fix tunnelProtocol context key always resolving to https on focus

Issue tracking

Contributions to our issue tracking:

• @gjsjohnmurray (John Murray)
• @RedCMD (RedCMD)
• @IllusionMH (Andrii Dieiev)
• @albertosantini (Alberto Santini)

We really appreciate people trying our new features as soon as they are ready, so check back here often and learn what's new.

If you'd like to read release notes for previous VS Code versions, go to Updates on code.visualstudio.com.

Original source

Follow us on LinkedIn, X, Bluesky

Release date: July 15, 2026

Update 1.129.1: The update addresses these issues.

Downloads: Windows: x64 Arm64 | Mac: Universal Intel silicon | Linux: deb rpm tarball Arm snap

Welcome to the 1.129 release of Visual Studio Code. This release brings a dedicated agent host, a new editor panel in the Agents window, running commands with !, and a preview of the modern UI.

• The agent host: Run agent sessions in a dedicated process and connect to them from multiple windows.
• New editor panel in the Agents window (Experimental): Review agent-generated files and diffs in a docked editor.
• Run commands with ! prefix: Run terminal commands directly from chat prompts.
• Modern UI preview (Experimental): Get a first look at the updated VS Code workbench appearance.

Happy Coding!

VS Code is rolling out gradually to all users. Use Check for Updates in VS Code to get the latest version immediately.

To try new features as soon as possible, download the nightly Insiders build, which includes the latest updates as soon as they are available.

Agents

The agent host

We're rearchitecting how agent sessions work in VS Code around the agent host - a dedicated process that runs agent harnesses such as Copilot, Claude, and Codex, based on the Agent Host Protocol (AHP). Because a session lives in its own process, the same session can be connected to and rendered from multiple VS Code windows at once. The agent host's Copilot agent is powered by the Copilot SDK, which means that its behavior and functionality is aligned with the Copilot CLI, the standalone GitHub Copilot app, and other Copilot products.

Learn more about the VS Code Agent Host architecture.

We're actively developing the agent host and starting to roll it out to users in both the editor window and the Agents window. To opt in, enable chat.agentHost.enabled (This setting is managed at the organization level. Contact your administrator to change it.) and then pick an agent host harness from the harness dropdown. The screenshot below shows how to select the Copilot harness on the agent host in the editor window.

As we continue to invest in the agent host, some new features in these release notes may only be available when an agent runs on it. Those features link back to this section and, where relevant, note any additional settings that enable them (for example, chat.agents.claude.preferAgentHost to enable the Claude agent on the agent host).

New editor panel in the Agents window (Experimental)

The Agents window shows your conversation with an agent next to a detail area for the files and changes it produces. This release introduces a redesigned editor panel that brings the editor and the detail area together into one docked pane with a shared tab bar, so reviewing an agent's work feels like working in the main editor instead of switching between separate panels.

With the new editor panel, you can:

• Open files and diffs directly inside the docked editor, next to your chat, and add tabs with a New Tab action that matches the chat tab strip.
• Review changes in the Changes view with an improved diff experience: toggle between inline and side-by-side views, expand or collapse all files at once, and read changes in a more compact diff representation that fits more of the change on screen. The next action, such as Create Pull Request, is available right from the editor tab title, and editor keybindings like toggling the diff view work the same as they do in the main VS Code window.
• Pick up where you left off. Each session restores its side-pane width, open editors, active editor, and per-file collapsed state across session switches and window reloads.

This is an experimental, opt-in layout. To try it, enable sessions.layout.singlePaneDetailPanel and reload the window, since the setting is read once at startup.

Session-management tools for Agent Host sessions

Agents running on the agent host (Copilot, Claude, and Codex) now have access to a suite of session-management tools, so an agent can enumerate, create, observe, and act on other sessions and chats without you needing to switch away from your current conversation.

With these tools, an agent can:

• List your sessions with their status, workspace, and changes, so it can find the right one to act on. Archived sessions are excluded unless explicitly requested.
• Read another session's recent conversation to understand what it's doing.
• Create a new session or a new chat within an existing session to hand off a sub-task, rather than overloading a single conversation with unrelated work.
• Send a message to a session or chat it created, to kick off or steer that work.

Whenever a tool creates or targets a session, VS Code renders an Open Session pill so you can jump straight to it. Sending a message to another session always asks for your confirmation first. An agent can't message its own chat, and a burst of sends is capped so a single request can't fan out into an unbounded number of sessions.

Agents window improvements

This release includes several smaller improvements to the Agents window new-session flow:

• Remembered new-session defaults: the new-session picker remembers your last agent mode and approvals choices and uses them as the defaults the next time you create a session, so you don't have to reselect the same options for every task.
• Worktree checkbox: instead of choosing between folder and worktree isolation from a dropdown, the new-session configuration shows a single New Worktree checkbox. Check it to run the session with Git worktree isolation, which keeps the agent's changes in a separate folder until you're ready to review and merge them, or leave it unchecked to use folder isolation.

Chat

Run commands with ! prefix

You can now prefix chat messages with a ! to run their contents as terminal commands. This works in agent host sessions both in the editor and Agents window.

BYOK models with the Copilot agent harness

You can now use Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) models in the Agents window when you select the Copilot harness running on the agent host.

Migrate prompt files to skills (Experimental)

Prompt files (*.prompt.md) are used to describe custom slash commands. They are only supported in the Local agent harness while other harnesses express slash commands with skills. For compatibility across harnesses, we recommend to migrate all prompt files to skills.

With chat.customizations.promptMigration.enabled enabled, if you select a harness running on the agent host and you have migratable prompt files, you'll now see a 'Migrate Prompts' entry in the AI Customizations overview.

The migration interface lets you:

• View prompt files from both workspace (.github/prompts/) and user data locations.
• Migrate selected files to skills and open the newly created skills.

Editor experience

Reopen an editor from the editor toolbar

When a file or diff supports multiple editors, you can switch editors directly from the editor toolbar. Open the ... menu and select an editor from the Reopen Editor With submenu. This makes alternative editors easier to discover without using the Command Palette.

Modern UI preview (Experimental)

Setting: workbench.experimental.modernUI

You can now preview a modernized VS Code UI that updates the look and feel of the editor workbench. This is currently an experimental feature that you can enable with the workbench.experimental.modernUI setting and is enabled by default in Insiders builds.

Authentication

GitHub Enterprise support for Copilot in the agent host

Developers whose GitHub Copilot access is provided through a GitHub Enterprise (GHE) instance can sign in and use Copilot in VS Code. Previously, the agent host's Copilot authentication only supported github.com, so a GHE-backed Copilot subscription could not complete sign-in: both the OAuth flow and the Copilot token request targeted github.com.

With this release, VS Code can authenticate Copilot against a GitHub Enterprise instance. When you sign in to Copilot, choose your GitHub Enterprise instance, and VS Code runs the sign-in flow and requests Copilot access tokens from that host instead of github.com. This works in both the editor window and the Agents window, and with both the Copilot and Claude agents.

Because this support is part of the agent host, ensure the agent host is enabled with chat.agentHost.enabled (This setting is managed at the organization level. Contact your administrator to change it.).

Proposed APIs

Configure custom editors for diff and merge editors

Custom editors now opt out of diff and merge editors by default. As a result, a file can continue to open in a custom editor while its diffs and merges open in the built-in text editors. You might notice this change if you previously saw a custom editor when opening a diff or merge editor.

To open a diff in another editor, use the Reopen Editor With submenu in the editor toolbar. To always use a specific editor for matching diffs, configure the workbench.diffEditorAssociations setting.

The proposed customEditorPriority API provides separate priorities for files, diffs, and merge editors:

{
  "priority": {
    "textEditor": "default",
    "diffEditor": "option",
    "mergeEditor": "never"
  }
}

The new never priority prevents automatic selection for that editor type while keeping the editor available for explicit selection.

If the text diff editor cannot display binary content, VS Code still falls back to a compatible custom diff editor.

Thank you

Contributions to vscode:

• @accnops (Arthur Cnops): chat/voice: land voice answers on question carousels (fix Skipped) PR #323161
• @cipheraxat (Akshat Anand): Fix Modern UI editor tab decoration color on full label PR #325291
• @danielrobbins (Daniel Robbins): Fix bugs related to setting the right Chat model. (Fixes Issue #323765) PR #323767
• @dobbydobap (varshitha):
  • Fix second Rerun Last Task failing to launch for reevaluateOnRerun tasks PR #324571
  • Unstick a pinned tab dragged to the start of the unpinned row PR #324734
• @JeffreyCA: Update Fig spec for Azure Developer CLI (azd) PR #321221
• @Kaidesuyoo (Kaidesuyo): fix persistent workbench UI performance degradation PR #324986
• @myselfsiddharth (Siddharth Mehta): debug: right-align toolbar actions in exception widget PR #325077
• @theanarkh (theanarkh):
  • workbench: fix ObjectSettingCheckboxWidget memory leaky PR #323670
  • fix: make sure register handler when ipc emitter add listener PR #323663
• @yavanosta (Dmitry Guketlev): Use startColumn in growUntilVariableBoundaries PR #324523

Issue tracking

Contributions to our issue tracking:

• @gjsjohnmurray (John Murray)
• @RedCMD (RedCMD)
• @IllusionMH (Andrii Dieiev)
• @albertosantini (Alberto Santini)
• @dobbydobap (varshitha)
• @hogiSp (hogiSp)

We really appreciate people trying our new features as soon as they are ready, so check back here often and learn what's new.

If you'd like to read release notes for previous VS Code versions, go to Updates on code.visualstudio.com.

Original source

Welcome to the 1.128 release of Visual Studio Code. This release brings richer multi-chat agent sessions, generally available image support in Chat, and OS-level keyboard shortcuts.

• Multi-chat agent sessions: Run several related chats in one Claude session to compare approaches and work in parallel.
• Quick chats: Ask a question in the Agents window without opening a workspace first.
• Copilot Vision: Attach images and PDFs to Chat by pasting, dragging, or dropping them, now generally available.
• Browser tab placement: Choose where integrated browser tabs open: the active group, a dedicated side group, or a separate window.
• OS-level keyboard shortcuts: Trigger VS Code commands with keybindings that work even when VS Code isn't focused.

Happy Coding!

VS Code is rolling out gradually to all users. Use Check for Updates in VS Code to get the latest version immediately.

To try new features as soon as possible, download the nightly Insiders build, which includes the latest updates as soon as they are available.

Agents

Multiple chats in a session now supports Claude agent

Claude agent-host sessions in the Agents window provide agentic coding capabilities powered by Anthropic's Claude Agent SDK directly in VS Code. Multiple chats keep related conversation threads in one session instead of spreading them across separate top-level sessions.

Single-chat Claude sessions remain a focused way to work with the agent. With multiple chats, a session can contain related chats, so you can compare approaches, branch from an earlier turn, and run work in parallel. You can add chats, fork a chat from an existing turn, switch between peer chats, and send turns concurrently. Each chat keeps its own history, title, and model selection, and restores with the parent session after restart. Peer chats stay grouped under the Claude session and don't appear as separate top-level sessions.

The following video shows a single Claude session with multiple chats: the main chat adds a /health endpoint to an Express app, while a peer chat writes tests for it in parallel, and a forked chat explores an alternative implementation. Each chat runs independently and stays grouped under the same session.

Chat without a selected workspace in the Agents window

The Agents window gives you a dedicated place to create, resume, and manage agent sessions. For project work, those sessions keep the chat, files, and changes together with the workspace.

For questions not tied to a folder, you can now start a chat in the Agents window without selecting a workspace. These chats appear in the Chats section and open focused and ready for input. Start a quick chat with unassigned or the plus button on the Chats section header.

Because a quick chat is workspace-less, it does not show the workspace-specific Changes or Files side pane. Quick chats are restored with your other sessions after reload and remain separate from workspace sessions.

Chats without a workspace are supported only by agent host sessions, so this experience is available when the agent host is enabled with chat.agentHost.enabled. This setting is managed at the organization level. Contact your administrator to change it.

The Pinned and Chats groups stay visible when empty by default. Use sessions.list.showEmptyDefaultGroups to hide these default groups until they contain sessions.

Read-only subagent chats in the Agents window (Preview)

When an agent delegates work to subagents, you can follow each worker's progress without interrupting or steering it from the main conversation. The Agents window provides a dedicated space for agent-driven workflows across projects, with chat and sessions as the primary interface.

When a session spawns subagents, their transcripts appear as read-only peer chats. Subagent chats are hidden from the tab strip until you open them from the Conversations menu, the running-subagents chip, or the inline subagent pill in the parent transcript. Opened subagent chats show their live progress, use the subagent title when available, and omit the composer and mutating chat actions so the worker transcript stays view-only.

Keyboard shortcuts for chats in the Agents window

The Agents window supports multi-chat sessions, where one agent session can contain multiple related chats. Keyboard-driven chat navigation helps you move between chats and manage chat tabs without leaving the keyboard.

• Create a chat with unassigned.
• Reopen the last closed chat with unassigned.
• Go to the next or previous chat with unassigned and unassigned.
• Quickly switch between open chats with unassigned and unassigned.
• Close the active chat tab with unassigned.
• Delete the active non-main chat with unassigned.
• Open a searchable picker for open and closed chats with unassigned.

These shortcuts are scoped to the Agents window and fall back to the existing session-level behavior when there is no chat-specific action to perform.

Chat

Copilot Vision is now generally available

Multimodal support is now generally available in VS Code, starting with this latest release. Attach images and PDFs by pasting them into Chat, dragging and dropping them, or using the context menu. Images may also be read by the agent via a tool call.

Check out this GitHub changelog for supported formats and availability details.

BYOK models in agent host Copilot sessions (Experimental)

Setting: chat.agentHost.byokModels.enabled

Use Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) models when you run sessions on an agent host. Enable chat.agentHost.byokModels.enabled and restart the agent host process for the change to take effect.

This feature is experimental and is still under active development.

Configure sampling parameters for custom endpoint models

You can configure temperature and top_p for each Custom Endpoint model, so requests work with providers that have strict parameter requirements.

Add the modelOptions object to a model's JSON configuration:

{
  ...
  "models": [
    {
      "id": "<model-id>",
      "modelOptions": {
        "temperature": 1,
        "top_p": null
      },
      ...
    }
  ]
}

Set a property to a number to override the default value that VS Code sends. Set it to null to omit the parameter from requests and use the model server's default. These options apply to Chat Completions, Responses, and Messages-compatible endpoints.

Configure the default utility model for BYOK

Setting: chat.byokUtilityModelDefault

When you use a bring your own key (BYOK) model as the main agent model, you can change the default behavior used by built-in utility flows, such as generating a chat title or a commit message. Set chat.byokUtilityModelDefault to use the main agent model, use a model provided by GitHub Copilot, or not use a default utility model.

Note: The default behavior is that no utility models are used with BYOK models as the main agent. Background tasks such as chat title generation and commit message generation do not work unless this option is set.

This setting has no effect when the main agent model is provided by GitHub Copilot. A model configured with chat.utilityModel or chat.utilitySmallModel takes precedence over this default.

Deep links to a specific chat

The Agents window helps you manage agent sessions and return to their associated workspaces and chats. Deep links can take you directly back to the relevant chat, so you don't have to open the workspace first and then manually find the session in Chat.

When an app opens a vscode:// deep link for a session, VS Code opens the workspace and focuses the specific chat identified by the link's session query parameter. The Open in VS Code action in the Agents window uses the same behavior, opening both the session's workspace folder and its active chat in the new VS Code window.

Editor Experience

Configurable placement of integrated browser tabs

Setting: workbench.browser.newTabPlacement

Keeping tabs organized can be a challenge. With this release, you can configure a location for browser tabs to open via the workbench.browser.newTabPlacement setting. The setting can take the following values:

• activeGroup (default): Browser tabs always open in the active editor group.
• sideGroup: Browser tabs open in a dedicated group to the side. This group is locked so only browser tabs open there.
• window: Browser tabs open in a dedicated auxiliary window. This window group is also locked to only browser tabs.

You can still reorganize tabs as desired, and pages opened from an existing tab (for example, by selecting a link with Ctrl) open in the same group as the parent.

OS-level keyboard shortcuts

VS Code can now contribute OS-level keyboard shortcuts. These shortcuts take effect even if VS Code is not in focus. Add systemWide to your keybinding definition in your keybindings.json to make it OS-level. For example, here's a keybinding in keybindings.json to focus the Agents window on MacOS:

{
  "key": "cmd+shift+a",
  "command": "workbench.action.openAgentsWindow",
  "systemWide": true
}

Enterprise

Manage Copilot telemetry export with OpenTelemetry

Organizations can mandate where GitHub Copilot sends OpenTelemetry (OTel) data, so that telemetry flows to an approved collector without each developer setting OTEL_* environment variables. The managed configuration applies to both the Copilot Chat extension and the agent host process.

Administrators deliver these settings through the telemetry block in Copilot managed settings, using any of the supported delivery channels. The block controls:

• The OTLP export endpoint and protocol.
• The OTel service name and resource attributes.
• Exporter headers, such as an authentication token for the collector.
• Whether prompt and response content is captured, and whether developers can change that.

A managed value always wins, taking precedence over environment variables and user settings.

To learn more, see Configure telemetry export with OpenTelemetry and Monitor agent usage with OpenTelemetry.

Thank you

Contributions to vscode:

• @accnops (Arthur Cnops): chat/voice: land voice answers on question carousels (fix Skipped) PR #323161
• @dobbydobap (varshitha): Fix second Rerun Last Task failing to launch for reevaluateOnRerun tasks PR #324571
• @JeffreyCA: Update Fig spec for Azure Developer CLI (azd) PR #321221
• @yavanosta (Dmitry Guketlev): Use startColumn in growUntilVariableBoundaries PR #324523

Issue tracking

Contributions to our issue tracking:

• @gjsjohnmurray (John Murray)
• @jasonperry1231hou-lang (jasonperry1231hou-lang)
• @RedCMD (RedCMD)
• @luo2430 (luo2430)

We really appreciate people trying our new features as soon as they are ready, so check back here often and learn what's new.

If you'd like to read release notes for previous VS Code versions, go to Updates on code.visualstudio.com.

Original source

Welcome to the 1.127 release of Visual Studio Code. This release brings agents that can build and test web apps in the browser, safer per-site browsing, and new ways to keep busy agent sessions organized.

• Browser tools for agents: Let agents open pages, take screenshots, and click through to validate their own work, now generally available.
• Per-site browser permissions: Grant pages access to the camera, location, devices, and more, with a prompt for each site.
• Agent sessions: Group related sessions and drag and drop to arrange a busy Agents window.
• Chat input banners: Act on failing CI checks and incoming pull request comments without leaving the conversation.
• Subagent credits: Hover over a subagent to see the cost of the work it handled.

Happy Coding!

VS Code is rolling out gradually to all users. Use Check for Updates in VS Code to get the latest version immediately.

To try new features as soon as possible, download the nightly Insiders build, which includes the latest updates as soon as they are available.

Agents window (Preview)

The Agents window is a dedicated companion window optimized for exploring, iterating on, and reviewing agent sessions across projects and machines. This release brings new ways to organize the sessions list and keep a busy list of sessions manageable.

Use groups to organize sessions

When you run several agent sessions at once, the sessions list can grow quickly and become hard to scan. You can now organize the sessions list into groups to keep related sessions together. Create your own custom groups, and collapse group headers to tidy up the list and focus on what matters. Each group also offers quick actions: you can start a new session directly in a group, or mark all of its sessions as done with one action.

Drag and drop in the sessions list

The sessions list now supports drag and drop to further organize your sessions:

• Reorder sessions by dragging them up or down
• Drag session group and workspace headers to rearrange the list
• Drag a session onto a group to add it to that group
• Drop a session onto the Pinned section to pin it
• Select multiple sessions to move them together as a block

Chat input banners

When a coding agent session has an open pull request, the Agents window displays a banner directly above the chat input, letting you act on failing checks and incoming feedback right where you're working. Each banner provides a single action to fix or view the issue without leaving your conversation:

• CI failures: When checks on the pull request fail, a banner shows how many checks failed (for example, "2 of 5 checks failed") with quick actions: Fix Checks starts an agent fix, and Reveal Checks opens the failing checks in the Changes view.
• Pull request comments: When new review comments come in, a banner shows the comment count with actions: Address Comments hands them to the agent, and Reveal Comments opens them in the editor.

Onboarding tours (Experimental)

Getting started with agents can be daunting if you're not sure what they can do for you. Onboarding tours are now available in the Agents window to help you get up to speed quickly. These guided walkthroughs highlight key capabilities and show you how to make the most of working with agents, helping you discover the best ways to delegate tasks and stay productive from day one. We're experimenting with these tours to find the most helpful way to introduce new users to the experience.

Editor gutter feedback when reviewing agent changes

When reviewing an agent's changes, pointing it at the exact code you want changed should be effortless. You can now leave feedback directly from the editor gutter: hovering over a line reveals an Add Feedback glyph in the gutter, and selecting it drops a comment on that line, making it quicker to direct an agent to a specific spot in the code. This release also brings a round of polish to the agent feedback experience, with refinements to the feedback input, hover behavior, and overall visual consistency.

Better pull request titles and descriptions from session context

Creating a pull request from the Agents window used to produce generic titles and descriptions that often needed manual editing. The Create Pull Request button now uses the session context to generate the pull request title and description, resulting in more accurate and descriptive pull requests that better reflect the work done in the session.

Multi-chat sessions

Multi-chat sessions let you run several chats within a single agent host Copilot session. This release builds on that foundation with the following improvements.

Close, reopen, and delete chats

Create new chats from the + New Chat button in the session header. Once more than one chat is open, a tab strip appears with a trailing + to add more. Closing a chat with the X on its tab hides it rather than discarding it—bring it back from the Conversations dropdown, where each chat has a checkbox to show or hide it. To permanently remove a chat, open its tab context menu and select Delete Chat.

Progress and changes across all chats

Previously, the session only reflected the active chat's activity, making it hard to tell whether peer chats were still working or what they had changed. Progress and file changes are now aggregated across all chats: the session shows as in-progress whenever any chat is working, each tab surfaces its own progress, and the session header Changes pill reflects the combined edits from every peer chat.

Fork a conversation into a peer chat

When you fork a conversation in a multi-chat session, the fork now creates a new peer chat in the same session instead of a brand-new top-level session. The forked chat inherits the conversation up to the fork point, runs independently from its siblings, and gets an auto-generated title. Single-chat and non-agent-host sessions keep the existing behavior of forking into a new session.

Session layout: Consistent pills in the session header

The row of actions under the session title now renders consistently as uniform, compact secondary button pills. A Workspace pill shows the workspace icon (cloud, folder, or worktree depending on the workspace kind) and label, with long names truncated. The Changes pill (N files +X -Y) reads and opens the session's default changeset, keeping its count and the multi-file diff it opens in agreement for both Copilot and agent-host providers.

Focus moves to the chat input when switching sessions

When you open a session in the Agents window, keyboard focus now lands in the chat input, ready for you to start typing immediately, even when the session has editors open or a Changes view that loads. Highlighting entries in the sessions list with the keyboard does not move focus until you actually open a session.

Responsive sessions sidebar (Experimental)

On a narrow window, showing the editor, side panel, and sessions sidebar at once leaves little room to work. When enabled, the Agents window automatically hides the sessions sidebar when the window is narrow and both the editor and side panel are open, and shows it again when there is room. It respects a manual close and suspends the behavior when multiple sessions are shown at once.

Troubleshoot agent behavior with /troubleshoot

The troubleshoot skill, invoked with the /troubleshoot command, helps diagnose chat issues by analyzing chat session logs and surfacing insights into the agent's behavior. Use it to investigate why custom instructions are ignored or why responses are slow. In this release, you can use /troubleshoot to diagnose agent host sessions, including local and remote sessions. In the Agents window, type /troubleshoot in the chat input followed by #session, select the session you want to troubleshoot, and add a question or description of the issue you're experiencing.

Cost management: Subagent credits

When an agent delegates work to a subagent, it can be difficult to know the cost of the delegated work. To make this more transparent, you can now hover over a subagent section in the chat response to see the AI credits used by that subagent.

Sandboxing for terminal commands on macOS and Linux

Approving every agent-invoked terminal command quickly becomes tedious. Starting with this release, we're rolling out sandboxing for terminal commands on macOS and Linux: commands run with network access blocked and filesystem access restricted, letting the agent work with fewer prompts. The agent only asks for approval when a command needs to elevate and run outside the sandbox. To learn more, see Agent sandboxing. You can turn this off via the Permissions drop-down.

Deprecation of the built-in Ollama provider

Model providers can contribute models for the VS Code chat experience via an extension. By using an extension, providers can give you faster support for new models and capabilities than a built-in provider could offer. Ollama now has an official VS Code extension, which is the recommended way to use local Ollama models in chat. As a result, the built-in Ollama provider is now deprecated. If you're using the built-in provider to run local models with Bring Your Own Key (BYOK), install the official extension and remove the built-in provider to continue using your Ollama models without interruption.

Integrated browser

The integrated browser now supports per-site permissions. This enables pages to use more web APIs, including:

• Geolocation
• Camera and microphone
• Sensors, such as accelerometer and gyroscope
• Clipboard
• Devices, such as Bluetooth, USB, serial, and HID

When a page requests a permission, VS Code prompts you to allow or deny the request, as you would expect in a traditional browser. Manage permissions for the current site from the Site Permissions browser menu item.

Agent tools are generally available

Browser tools let an agent open pages in the integrated browser, read content and console errors, take screenshots, and select, type, and navigate to verify its own work, all without an external MCP server. After several milestones in preview, browser tools are generally available and enabled by default. A big thank you to everyone who ran the preview, filed issues, and shared feedback. Your testing directly shaped the per-session tab isolation, the explicit page-sharing controls, and the permission model that ship in this release. Ask an agent to build and validate a web app, or follow the step-by-step Build and test web apps with browser agent tools guide to see the closed build-test-fix loop in action. For the full reference, see Browser tools for agents. Administrators can govern browser tools through enterprise policy: disable them entirely with the BrowserChatTools policy, or restrict which domains agent tools can reach with agent network filtering (ChatAgentNetworkFilter plus allow and deny domain lists). See Configure AI settings for your organization.

Enterprise

File-based delivery for managed Copilot settings

Administrators can now deliver managed GitHub Copilot settings from a JSON file on disk, in addition to the native MDM channels and the account-based enterprise settings file. This gives organizations a straightforward way to apply policies on machines that aren't enrolled in a device management solution, or where provisioning a file through existing tooling (such as a configuration management system or imaging pipeline) is simpler than authoring native MDM payloads. VS Code reads a managed-settings.json file from a well-known per-OS location. This file is honored only when MDM or account-based enterprise settings are not present.

Deprecated features and settings

None

Thank you

Contributions to vscode and node-pty with various fixes and improvements from community members.

Issue tracking

Contributions to issue tracking from community members.

We really appreciate people trying our new features as soon as they are ready, so check back here often and learn what's new.

If you'd like to read release notes for previous VS Code versions, go to Updates on code.visualstudio.com.

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