The Visual Studio Code Team details the October 2025 (v1.106) release, featuring major upgrades to Copilot Chat, the AI agent platform, coding tools, terminal experiences, and extensibility for developers.

Visual Studio Code October 2025 Release (v1.106)

Author: Visual Studio Code Team

Overview

The October 2025 release of Visual Studio Code (version 1.106) delivers a significant suite of new features for developers, especially those leveraging Microsoft’s AI, DevOps, and productivity platforms. Highlights include a robust AI agent infrastructure, Copilot Chat and CLI enhancements, richer coding and source control features, and expanded tools for extension and workflow authors.

Major Highlights

1. AI Agents & Copilot Platform

  • Agent HQ: Unified dashboard to launch, monitor, and review agent sessions (local, Copilot, Codex, or CLI agents).
  • Plan Agent: Interactive agent for breaking down and planning complex development tasks before generating code—actions can be iteratively approved.
  • Custom Agents: Build, manage, and extend custom agent workflows with new frontmatter options for fine-tuned integration across VS Code and GitHub Copilot.

2. Copilot Chat & CLI Integration Enhancements

  • Copilot CLI: Now integrates tightly within VS Code. Sessions can be managed as first-class citizens in the chat interface or terminal, with tracking of edits and delegation.
  • Cloud Agent Improvements: Native support for opening and interacting with Copilot coding agents through cloud features and GitHub Mission Control.
  • Open Source Milestone: Inline suggestions are now open source, and Copilot Chat/extension experiences are unified for consistency and transparency.
  • Chat Modes Renamed: ‘Chat modes’ are now ‘Custom Agents’; legacy files automatically migrate.

3. Editor & Productivity Features

  • Inline Diff Copy: Select and copy deleted code in diff editors for more flexible code reviews.
  • Refreshed Iconography: More modern and legible codicon icons.
  • Advanced Settings: Access to hidden, advanced features and configuration—for expert users and extension authors.
  • Terminal IntelliSense: Powerful, extensible command suggestions for major shells (PowerShell, bash, zsh, fish). Customizations and integration improvements included.

4. DevOps & Source Control

  • Source Control Graph: Visualize and compare incoming/outgoing changes, fold commit messages, and fine-tune repository views for multi-repository setups.
  • Expanded GitHub Pull Requests Support: AI-generated PR descriptions, enhanced diff navigation, and draft handling.

5. Security & Trust Improvements

  • Tool Approvals: Post-approval for tools accessing external data (preventing prompt injections) and support to trust entire servers/extensions.
  • Terminal Tool Security: Enhanced shell command parsing, detection of file writes, and experimental auto-approval rules.

6. Language & Testing Support

  • Python: docstring creation from Copilot summaries, improved virtual environment creation, and explicit import refactoring.
  • Notebooks & Coverage Navigation: Enhanced search and navigation of uncovered lines in test coverage.

7. Extension Authoring & APIs

  • Markdown Alerts & Labels: Render GitHub-style alerts and use markdown in tree view labels for richer UI components.
  • Secondary Sidebar: Place custom views alongside built-in chat experiences.

Key Upgrades in Detail

AI & Copilot Chat

  • Improved unified UI for engaging with AI-powered chat and agents inside VS Code.
  • End-to-end edit tracking for Copilot CLI sessions and agent delegations from both UI and terminal.
  • Option to save AI conversations as reusable prompts or edit welcome prompts for consistency in workflow.
  • Integration of cloud-based Copilot agents and streamlined delegation for complex, multi-step coding operations.

Developer Productivity

  • Enhanced code navigation, folding, Git commit management, and advanced diff navigation for teams.
  • Stability improvements in notebook search, code folding, and command palette accent-insensitive filtering.
  • Diagnostic hover copy and multi-file diff navigation.

DevOps & Source Control

  • Intuitive repository selection, visualization, and comparison tools.
  • Improved GitHub pull request management, including AI-powered PR description drafts and advanced branch controls.

Extension & API Surface

  • Support for new authentication workflows, Quick Pick enhancements, markdown alerts, and custom icons for refined UI development.
  • Tools to manage MCP servers, account preferences, and workspace-specific installations, supporting enterprise policy and multi-user collaboration.

Security & Admin

  • Post-approval controls for agent tools that access external data, trust management for MCP servers and extensions.
  • Shell integration timeout consolidation and improved terminal integration settings for safer command execution.

Contributing & Community Recognition

Numerous community contributions are credited, spanning code fixes, feature enhancements, localization, and documentation, reflecting the commitment of Microsoft and the wider OSS community.

For a complete list of contributors and pull requests: see the original release notes linked above.

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