Visual Studio Code full changelog

VS Code now recursively searches for *.instructions.md files in subdirectories under .github/instructions/, matching the behavior of Copilot CLI and web-based GitHub Copilot agents. Previously, only files in the root .github/instructions/ directory were discovered.
You can now copy the name of an item in the Source Control Repositories view by using the context menu option Copy Stash Name, Copy Branch Name, or other.
Custom agent frontmatter now supports agent-scoped chat hooks. These hooks only run when the custom agent is selected or invoked via runSubagent. This feature requires enabling the chat.useCustomAgentHooks setting.
A new /troubleshoot slash command injects agent mode event logs into the chat context. Use it to ask the agent which customizations are loaded, how many tokens are consumed, debug instructions, and more.
CLI sessions now support folder and repository isolation, in addition to worktree isolation.

The update addresses these security issues in core and these security issues in the GitHub Copilot Chat extension.

This release makes agents practical for longer-running and more complex tasks, giving you more control and visibility, new ways to extend agents, and smarter session management:
Agent plugins: install prepackaged bundles of skills, tools, and hooks from the Extensions view
Agentic browser tools: let the agent drive the browser to interact with your app and verify its own changes
Session memory: persist plans and guidance across conversation turns
Context compaction: manually compact conversation history to free up context space
Fork a chat session: create a new, independent session that inherits conversation history to explore alternative approaches
Agent Debug panel: get real-time visibility into agent events, tool calls, and loaded customizations
Chat accessibility: use chat to its fullest with screen reader improvements, keyboard navigation, and notification signals
Create agent customizations from chat: generate prompts, skills, agents, and hooks directly from a conversation
Kitty graphics protocol: render high-fidelity images directly in the integrated terminal

Addresses these issues:
Ensure hook settings are marked as preview
ask questions ux issues querybug
tray executing tool invocation
2026 Themes missing markdown syntax highlighting | (discuss after Patch Tuesday)
Infer agent migration and new skills folder
File menu submenus don't work with new theme | (discuss after Patch Tuesday)

The update addresses these security issues:
Terminal auto replies restriction

Chat UX - chat just feels better and snappier with faster streaming, improved reasoning results, and a revamped editor inline chat
Agent Session Management - it's now easier to delegate tasks to agents across local, background, and cloud and jump in when needed
Agent Customization - build your own workflows using agent orchestrations, and have consistent results with Agent Skills and organization-wide customizations
Agent Extensibility - reuse your knowledge with Claude agent support and new Anthropic model capabilities, and enjoy rich chat interactions with MCP Apps
Agent Optimizations - agents work smarter with Copilot Memory and experience faster code search with external indexing
Agent Security & Trust - feel confident running terminal commands with sandboxing and effective auto-approval rules
Workbench & productivity - test your apps without leaving the editor with the new integrated browser
Terminal Enhancements - quality-of-life improvements to make your terminal experience smoother and more reliable
Coding & Editor - several impactful improvements to make everyday coding smoother
Extensions & API - new capabilities for extension authors to build richer experiences

The update addresses these issues:
Support model / partner agents in Cloud Agents
Broken rendering on macOS after app resumed from idle state

The update addresses these issues:
NES suggestions don't show if diagnostics based suggestions return empty early
terminal-suggest: ls ../ brings up wrong file suggestions
Update hashes for vsc model
ctrl+shift+g is being overridden by editor.action.announceCursorPosition
Hide initial hint when it's too narrow
Git Source Control Graph tree doesn't expand for some entries
Streaming feature in the newest release makes the cursor jumpy
Fix Overlapping of Suggestion Text with Prompt in VS Code Terminal
Bad wrapping in terminal command

Agents:
Agent Skills (Experimental):
Setting: chat.useAgentSkills
VS Code now supports Agent Skills, allowing you to teach the coding agent new capabilities and provide domain-specific knowledge. Agent Skills are folders of instructions, scripts, and resources that GitHub Copilot can load when relevant to perform specialized tasks.
Skills are stored in directories with a SKILL.md file that defines the skill's behavior. VS Code automatically detects skills from the .github/skills folder in your workspace (or .claude/skills/ for backwards compatibility). They are then loaded on-demand into the chat context when relevant for your request.
Improvements to Agent Sessions view:
This iteration, we further improved the Agent Sessions view with several enhancements:
Keyboard access support for actions such as archive, read state, opening a session
Grouping of sessions based on state and age when showing side-by-side
Provide information on changed files and associated PRs for a session
Support for archiving multiple sessions at once from the new group sections
General accessibility improvements
Chat:
Chat picker is based on agent sessions:
The Quick Pick for chat sessions is now based on the same information that drives the Agent Sessions view. You can access any previous chat session from there and perform actions like archiving, renaming or deletion.
Chat title improvements:
The Chat view title control is now showing up, irrespective of how the Activity Bar is configured. Previously, it only showed up in the default Activity Bar configuration.
To quickly jump from one session to another, select the chat title to open the sessions Quick Pick and choose another session.
Open empty Chat on restart:
Setting:chat.viewRestorePreviousSession
From now on, previous chat sessions are not automatically restored when VS Code is restarted. Instead, an empty Chat view is shown where you can then access previous sessions from the Agent Sessions control.
Modify this behavior with the
chat.

Update 1.107.1: The update addresses these issues, some of the key highlights include:
Improved out of the box experience with Agent Sessions sidebar. The default view session orentation is not set to sideBySide.
Improved Input Needed request rendering on Agent Sessions.
Support copying workspace changes when creating Background Session
New session does not clear input/prompt.
Tool calls in Cloud sessions are collapsed by default now.