Visual Studio Code unifies UI for managing coding agents

The latest update to the Microsoft Visual Studio Code editor centers on Agent HQ, featuring a single view to start, monitor, and review agent sessions, whether local or remote.

Also called the October 2025 release, Visual Studio Code 1.106 was published November 12. Downloads for Windows, macOS, and Linux can be accessed from visualstudio.com.

Agent HQ provides multiple capabilities including the Agent Sessions view, a centralized location for managing active chat sessions. This includes local sessions in VS Code and sessions created by background agents in other environments, such as the Copilot coding agent, GitHub Copilot, or  OpenAI Codex. The Agent Sessions view now is enabled by default.

Also featured as part of Agent HQ is a new plan agent that breaks down complex tasks step-by-step before any code is written. Selecting Plan from the agents dropdown in the Chat view gets this started. When tackling a multi-step implementation, VS Code prompts the user with clarifying questions and generates a detailed implementation plan to be approved first, ensuring all requirements and context are captured up front. Developers can create a custom plan agent tailored to a team”s specific workflow and tools. GitHub last month launched Agent HQ for managing AI agents, emphasizing its extension to VS Code.

Visual Studio Code 1.106 also features updates to cloud agent sessions in the editor. The Copilot coding agent integration has been migrated from the GitHub Pull Request extension into the Copilot Chat extension to provide a more native cloud agent experience in VS Code. The release also includes an initial integration with the Copilot CLI. Users can create new sessions and resume existing CLI agent sessions in a chat editor or an integrated terminal.

Code editing also gets attention in Visual Studio Code 1.106. Deleted code in the diff editor now is selectable. Previously, when code was deleted and the changes viewed in the diff editor, the deleted lines could not be copied. Now, developers can copy text from deleted lines in the diff editor when using the inline diff view. In addition, the Go to Line command now supports navigating to a specific character position in a file by using the:: syntax. This is useful when tools report errors at specific character offsets, such as “error at position 599.”

Other new features and improvements in Visual Studio Code 1.106:

The concept of advanced settings now is supported. These settings are meant for configuring specialized scenarios and are intended for fine-grained control over an environment.

The Manage Extension Account Preferences command has been made more discoverable.

Iconography has been refreshed. New icons have been refined with curves, new modifier designs, and more accurate metaphors to make them feel modern, friendly, and more legible.

Support has been introduced for managing VS Code policies on Linux systems using JSON files. This lets administrators enforce specific settings and configurations across all users on a Linux machine.

Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers and extension tools now can be trusted at the source level through the Allow button dropdown.

 A copy button now appears in diagnostic hovers (errors, warnings, info, and hints) to make it easier to copy error messages.

The Command Palette now ignores character accents when searching for commands. This makes it easier to find what is needed regardless of keyboard layout or language preferences.