Visual Studio Code v1.111 Changelog

This release is all about improving the AI "agent" experience in VS Code. An agent is an AI helper that can do tasks for you, like writing or editing code. These updates matter most to developers who use AI heavily and want more control over how much the AI is allowed to do without asking for permission first.

What's new

• Agent permissions and Autopilot: You can now choose how independent your AI agent is. You can stick to "Default Approvals" (where the AI asks before doing anything big), "Bypass Approvals" (where the AI just does things without asking), or the new "Autopilot" mode. In Autopilot, the AI works completely on its own, answering questions and retrying things until it finishes the whole task.
• Agent-scoped hooks (Preview): You can now set up specific instructions (called "hooks") that run automatically before or after a specific AI agent does its job, without affecting your other chat interactions.
• Debug events snapshot: If your AI agent is acting weird, you can now take a "snapshot" of its background activity and attach it right to your chat. This makes it super easy to ask the AI to figure out what went wrong.
• AI CLI profiles in terminal (Experimental): AI command-line tools (like GitHub Copilot CLI) now show up in their own special group at the top of your terminal menu so they are easier to find.

Improvements

• Smarter chat tips: The little tips that pop up in the chat window got a redesign. They now guide you step-by-step, showing you basic features first (like how to plan a project) and hiding themselves if you have too many chat windows open to avoid clutter. They also include handy keyboard shortcuts.
• Easier extension writing: For developers who build add-ons for VS Code, it's now easier to work with translated text. You can easily jump to where a translated word is defined or find everywhere it's used.
• Better testing behind the scenes: The VS Code team upgraded their own engineering tools to make testing new features faster and more organized, which helps them ship updates more quickly.

Fixes

• The notes do not highlight specific bug fixes for this release, but the team's new automated testing steps are designed to catch and fix issues more efficiently before they reach users.

Breaking changes

• Upcoming removal of Edit Mode: An older feature called "Edit Mode" is being phased out. While it's gone from the main settings, you can still temporarily turn it back on using a hidden setting (chat.editMode.hidden). However, it will be permanently deleted in a future version (1.126), so you should stop relying on it.