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Highlights
Are you getting everything you can from Your Visual Studio Subscription?
Introducing Agentic Autofix for code and dependencies
Azure DevOps available in Microsoft Copilot Cowork
Latest posts
GitHub Copilot is now a default agent in JetBrains Air
GitHub Copilot is now available in the JetBrains Air as a default agent. Select GitHub Copilot as your agent, delegate coding tasks, and work through results without leaving your IDE. All you need to get started is a GitHub Copilot subscription: Built in collaboration with JetBrains and powered by Agent Client Protocol (ACP), this integration brings GitHub Copilot into Air's native agent experience. Developers can select GitHub Copilot from the agent picker, sign in with their existing GitHub Copilot subscriptions, and start delegating coding tasks, managing parallel agent sessions, and reviewing changes wi...
Announcing XAML IntelliSense Support in the WinApp VS Code Extension
From creating your first project to writing UI and debugging with package identity, the WinApp extension helps you build Windows apps right in VS Code. It combines language support for app manifests with tools to create, run, debug, package, and sign your app, bringing more of your everyday development workflow into the editor. Get it now: Install the WinApp extension from the VS Code Marketplace. We're excited to announce the release of v0.4. This release introduces an experimental preview of project-aware IntelliSense for your WinUI XAML, adds a command for creating new WinUI apps, and lets you build and ru...
My Favorite Undocumented Feature in SQL MCP Server
Deploy Microsoft's SQL MCP Server in minutes without a configuration file. Learn how DAB_CONNSTRING enables fast deployment using Docker, Azure Container Apps, ACI, or AKS.
Modernize MongoDB applications with Azure DocumentDB: From assessment to what’s next
Migrating an existing MongoDB application shouldn't mean starting over. The application code, data models, APIs, and integrations you've already built represent years of investment. The challenge is moving forward while preserving what works. For many organizations, modernization is about more than moving a database to the cloud. It's an opportunity to simplify operations, optimize costs, build on open-source technologies, and prepare applications for new requirements, including AI-powered experiences. Azure DocumentDB provides a path forward. Microsoft's fully managed, MongoDB-compatible database service i...
Delivering Skills in NuGet packages
Agent skills can be delivered in NuGet packages as a way to deliver up-to-date library documentation to models.
Get Ready for .NET Conf 2026!
.NET Conf is one week away! Join us November 10-13 for the launch of .NET 11, two days of Microsoft sessions, and two days of Community Days.
Sparse Package
We recently discussed External Location and how it lets Windows find files referenced in but installed by some other (not-MSIX) installer. Many people call this kind of package a "Sparse package". Many even think sparse packages are the important feature, and External Location is a minor implementation detail. But...what is a sparse package? First, let's create one. HOWTO create a sparse package At its simplest, a sparse package contains and other footprint files, and no payload files.1 For example, here's a simple manifest for a HelloWorld application: The manifest declares , indicating it is intended ...
Your app needs documents. Do you really want to build a document platform?
File storage is rarely just file storage. Imagine your team is building a contract management application. At first, the document requirement looks straightforward: upload a file, organize it, retrieve it, and let the right people open it. Then the real requirements from your customer, security, and operations teams arrive, and the scope quickly expands to collaboration, authentication, permissions, governance, and administrative controls. What began as a feature has become a document platform. And now your team is spending cycles on content services instead of adding unique customer value. SharePoint ...
Go beyond the basics: Explore specialized Azure plugins for your AI agent
Explore six specialized Azure plugins for AKS operations, cost management, Advisor recommendations, Kusto graph analysis, Azure Local, and Foundry IQ, with example prompts and installation commands.
How do you implement a random-access database when you don’t have random-access external storage?
You just store it all in memory, in your own program.
ChatGPT runs on Azure Cosmos DB. Prove you can build what’s next.
Take the newly AI-focused DP-420 exam free at Microsoft Ignite—or take the certification exam today and save 50% through Data Days. OpenAI’s storage platform uses Azure Cosmos DB to help serve products used by more than one billion people each week. If you want to build AI applications at that kind of scale, the newly updated DP-420 certification gives you a way to validate your expertise—and registered, in-person Microsoft Ignite 2026 attendees can take the exam onsite for free. DP-420 now centers on Building AI Applications with Azure Cosmos DB, in...
Sneaking into the auditorium for the Windows 2000 launch rehearsal
Wait, that's not him.
My Team Is Growing, How Do I Structure Who Gets Access to What?
Your project started with one or two people. Now developers, operators, analysts, and applications all need access to Azure Cosmos DB. Giving everyone the same permissions might feel efficient, but it makes every identity more powerful than its job requires. As your team grows, organize access around jobs, not people. Separate management access from data access, assign roles to groups and workload identities, and use the smallest practical scope. You do not need a complicated permission model for every person. You need a small set of repeatable access patterns. Separate managing the account from using i...
How Microsoft SQL learned to recover without undoing everything first
Under the Hood: The Research Behind Microsoft SQL, part 2 Here’s a scenario that used to be genuinely frightening: you kick off a bulk load of a few hundred million rows in a single transaction. Somewhere in the middle, the server goes down. Not because of your load, just an unlucky reboot. When SQL Server comes back, it has to undo everything that transaction did before anyone can touch those tables. Row by row (I think I’ve heard probably Bob Ward say “row by agonizing row” to describe this). Working backwards through the log. That exact thing happened to an Azure SQL customer, and the team wrote it in...
Everything released in October 2026 for Azure Developer CLI
The October recap for the Azure Developer CLI (`azd`). Preview service deployments before making changes, deploy to Container Apps express, remove stored environment values, and use extension-defined infrastructure providers in generated pipelines. Extension APIs gain stable contracts, and provisioning validation, cancellation, and upgrade recovery improve.
Is Azure SQL Database Hyperscale “distributed SQL”?
In my last post, I broke down the Socrates paper, the research that became Azure SQL Database Hyperscale. Writing it made me want to tackle a question I think trips a lot of people up when they're choosing a database: is Azure SQL Database Hyperscale "distributed SQL"? It's a fair question. "Distributed SQL" has become shorthand for "the relational database that scales in the cloud," and anything outside that bucket tends to get filed under "the relational one my company already has." I'd rather not leave that to assumption, so here's how I think about it. What people usually mean by "distributed" When ar...
The Microsoft building that was reportedly haunted
Lots of rumors, little confirmation.
Does ‘eval’ in the workspace path change what your agent does?
Your eval might be telling the agent it's a test before the agent reads a single instruction. Eval tools need a fresh folder for every run, and the easiest way to get one is a temp directory with a random name like . The agent sees that path on every turn, in the system prompt as its working directory and in the output of every tool call. If models can tell when they're being tested, a folder literally called is about the easiest giveaway there is. So we checked whether the folder name changes what agents do. Across about 900 runs and four models, it made them more convinced they were being tested, but it didn'...
What’s New in vcpkg (Oct 2026)
This blog post summarizes changes to the vcpkg package manager as part of the 2026-10-16 registry release and the 2026-09-26 tool release. These updates include configurable binary-cache compression, improved cache reliability and diagnostics, Boost 1.92, and other improvements and bug fixes. vcpkg changelog (2026.10.16 release) Tool improvements Notable port updates Documentation updates The following documentation changes were published recently: Total ports a...
Blazor Welcomes Open-Source Contributions from Syncfusion
Microsoft and Syncfusion are collaborating on Blazor through a free, open-source component toolkit, framework contributions, and developer tooling.
The support case of a customer who said that all they could see was a black screen
Then again, that is what they asked for.
Preparing for your next certification could start with your Visual Studio Subscription
Are you thinking about earning a Microsoft certification to help advance your career, build on your existing skills, or meet new requirements at work? If so, you may already be wondering where to start. Which courses, labs, and hands-on exercises will help you prepare? How much time will it take to find the right resources, and how much will that training cost? Here's something you may not be aware of: Eligible Visual Studio Subscriptions already include many of the learning resources you need to prepare for your next certification. Visual Studio subscribers can access training from Cloud Academy ...
PIX 2610.28 – the biggest release of 2026
Today we released PIX 2610.28, available for download here. This release supports all the new retail and preview D3D12 features released today in DirectX Agility SDK 620 and 721. This is the first PIX build combining support for both retail and preview Agility SDKs, simplifying the user experience. Beyond that, 2610.28 brings many new features and improvements since the last regular PIX release, PIX 2603.25, including all the features previewed in the May and June preview builds. It also includes the most bug fixes we've ever released in a single version of PIX. Contents ...
DirectX Dump Files are now ready for your retail games
At GDC 2026, we shared our vision for bringing console-level GPU developer tools to Windows, and in June we released the DirectX Dump Files public preview. Thank you to everyone who tried the preview and sent us feedback. Today, DirectX Dump Files are ready for your retail games. Starting with Agility SDK 1.620 and PIX 2610.28, you can capture GPU crashes on your players' PCs and on your own machines, then investigate them in PIX using one consistent workflow across hardware vendors. We couldn't have done this alone. DirectX Dump Files bring together data from Windows, Direct3D, and each hardware vendor's d...
Announcing Agility SDK 1.620 Retail and 1.722 Preview: DirectX Dump Files, Partial Graphics Programs, and So Much More!
Today, we are pleased to announce the release of Agility SDK 1.620 retail and Agility SDK 1.722-preview! Agility SDK 1.620 brings DirectX Dump Files to retail, along with Fence Barriers Tier 1, the Batched Asynchronous Command List APIs, and Partial Graphics Programs. Meanwhile, Agility SDK 1.722-preview introduces major updates to DirectX Raytracing capabilities for highly detailed, dynamic scenes. Here's the list of everything in Agility SDK 1.620: And here's what's new in Agility SDK 1.722-preview: Quick note: Shader Model 6.10 remains in preview for t...
Publish Visual Studio Marketplace extensions securely with Trusted Publishing
Publish Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio extensions from GitHub Actions or Azure Pipelines without storing a long-lived personal access token.
[PREVIEW] Raytracing: Clustered Geometry, Partitioned TLAS, Indirect Acceleration Structure Builds
Today we're introducing a preview of DirectX Raytracing (DXR) Clustered Geometry and Partitioned Top-Level Acceleration Structures (PTLAS), with a unified GPU-driven API for building and updating them. This is part of a larger AgilitySDK release described in the parent post: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/agilitysdk-1-620-retail-and-1-722-preview/ For DXR this is the most significant update since its debut in 2018. Here's the motivation for Clustered Geometry and Partitioned TLAS: At object level scope within a scene, animation, streaming, and generated geometry can repeatedly incur the cost...
Async Commands Fallback Layer
We're pleased to announce that Agility SDK 1.620.1 includes a fallback layer for Batched Async Commands, letting developers use the new commands on hardware that doesn't support them natively. You can find the NuGet package here. Background Batched Async Commands were introduced in the Agility SDK 1.720 Preview as a new set of copy, fill, clear, and resolve commands. The legacy versions of these operations are implicitly serialized, since the original resource barrier model has no way to say that two copies don't depend on each other. The batched versions drop that implicit serialization and take many operation...
Introducing the Microsoft Copilot harness in Foundry Agent Service
A model can reason about a task. Completing that task takes more: the right context, tools, execution environment, and controls, and an agent loop that brings them together. Microsoft’s unified harness strategy brings a shared execution foundation across our agent experiences while preserving customer choice. In Microsoft Foundry, that means you can choose a supported model and decide how much of the agent stack to build yourself, without having to assemble every layer around it. Today, we’re introducing the Microsoft Copilot harness in Foundry Agent Service in public preview. It gives developers a fully manage...
Azure SDK Release (October 2026)
October's Azure SDK highlights include Azure Core authentication updates, managed identity improvements for Python and Java, and the first stable Cosmos DB libraries for Rust.
C++/WinRT overcorrection: Using make_self and immediately converting it to the projected interface
You are taking the scenic route.
Streamline creation and management of AI-ready, custom apps with SharePoint Embedded
SharePoint content isn’t limited to sites and document libraries. Increasingly, organizations are bringing Microsoft 365 content capabilities directly into the custom apps their users rely on. That’s where SharePoint Embedded comes in. SharePoint Embedded is a cloud-based, API-only document management platform that enables developers to bring Microsoft 365 content capabilities into custom applications, including Office collaboration, Microsoft Purview security and compliance, and Copilot experiences. The application provides the user experience, while SharePoint Embedded provides the content platform behind i...
Agentic CI/CD with Azure Cosmos DB: Isolated Environments for a Swarm of AI Agents
Give each coding task its own disposable database environment, then merge the reviewed changes - not the test database. When parallel coding agents share a database In From Local Development to CI Workflows with the Azure Cosmos DB Emulator, we used FleetCharge to make local development and CI repeatable. Start the emulator, seed known data, run the checks, and clean up afterward. Now consider several AI coding agents working on the same application at once. One is changing dispatch behavior. Another is adding a depot rule. A third is updating tests. Each has its own branch, and perhaps its own Git worktree,...
Copilot UX components are generally available: bring interactive experiences into Copilot
Copilot UX components are generally available with SPFx 1.24. Bring interactive dashboards, forms, and business actions directly into Microsoft Copilot, so people can complete tasks in context using experiences built on existing web skills and systems.
Azure DevOps Server RC (26H2) Is Now Available
Today we're releasing the release candidate (RC) of the next Azure DevOps Server release. It brings new features previously available in our hosted version, along with security and quality improvements. You can download Azure DevOps Server RC (26H2) today. A direct upgrade to Azure DevOps Server RC is supported from any version of Team Foundation Server, including Team Foundation Server 2015 and newer. Direct upgrade from this RC release to the eventual RTW will be supported. If you prefer to wait until RTW to upgrade your servers, trying out this RC on a test deployment is a great first step. Note: Extended ...
External Location
We talked recently about PackageVolume as one of the ways to stage packages. Let's turn our gaze to External Location, which plays a distinct role in MSIX, with similarities to - and important differences from - other options. Why is External Location? MSIX deployment provides a full-service software installation stack. The process is simple: collect your content, describe your package in an , and run makeappx.exe and signtool.exe to create a signed .msix to distribution and install. But...what if you already have a product with an existing installer? What if you need to extend your product with features uniq...
Visual Studio October Update – Compare Commits to Your Code, Resolve Conflicts in Bulk, Keep Coding
Compare commits with your working tree, resolve merge conflicts in bulk, and keep coding with refreshed Copilot chat, Hot Exit, keyboard tab controls, and Fonts and Colors.
Blazor Welcomes Open-Source Contributions from Infragistics
Microsoft and Infragistics are collaborating on Blazor through free, open-source components, new .NET 11 analyzers, and developer tooling.
Why don’t we run the taskbar and Task Manager at high priority, so they can remain responsive?
Hurry up and wait.
Inspecting Local Data with Azure Cosmos DB Shell
Explore local data from the terminal with Azure Cosmos DB Shell. Connect to the emulator, inspect FleetCharge documents, run queries, and point-read depot partitions.
Announcing Azure AI Speech LLM 09-2026: Broader locale support
Learn how Azure AI Speech LLM 09-2026 improves multilingual language and locale support with improved quality and latency.
PostgreSQL Like A Pro: Build, query, and troubleshoot without leaving VS Code
Build, query, and troubleshoot without leaving VS Code.
Puzzling out why a program doesn’t work when run from a batch file, but works when double-clicked from Explorer
Mimicking the operation more accurately.
PHP2Shell and Azure DevOps: what to check
On October 21, 2026, PHP disclosed two critical vulnerabilities that can allow remote code execution. Neither Azure DevOps Services, our cloud-hosted offering, nor Azure DevOps Server, our on-premises product, uses PHP to handle customer requests. PHP runtimes used by pipelines, containers, and deployed applications have their own patching requirements. Deployment scope: cloud and on-premises Azure DevOps Services (cloud). Microsoft operates and updates the service. You remain responsible for PHP installed by your pipeline steps or bundled into custom images and applications. Azure DevOps Server (on-premises)...
Keep your investigation between sessions
Start a standalone Markdown note and use the opt-in Hot Exit preview to resume unsaved work next session.
.NET October 2026 Out-of-Band Security Updates
Out-of-band security updates for .NET address the Brotli decoder vulnerability and tarball ownership vulnerability.
The paper that split the database in four: inside Azure SQL Database Hyperscale, aka Socrates
Under the Hood: The Research Behind Microsoft SQL, part 1 The Microsoft SQL team is always innovating. They do this in day-to-day efforts, but there are also brand new efforts that are constantly being explored, investigated, tested, and researched. Our engineering team partners closely with MSR (Microsoft Research) on some of these efforts. The team writes papers, submits these papers to conferences, and generally gets high recognition for their ingenuity in the databases and cloud space. One thing I’ve been thinking about recently is how little I actually have read the papers being written, and what scena...
Code with Cosmos: Build a Production-Ready AI App in Four Episodes
Follow an AI application from a blank folder to a system built for production AI application development often starts with a promising prototype. A real application has to do more than produce an answer: it needs current operational data, the ability to take actions and complete transactions, memory that carries across sessions, coordination between specialized agents, and enough visibility for developers to understand and improve how the system behaves. Today, we're introducing Code with Cosmos, a new four-part Azure Cosmos DB video series that follows one app – an AI travel planner – from a blank folder...
Why didn’t we use the COM static store to clean up the unmarshalable delegate?
It cleans up at the wrong time.
From Local Development to CI Workflows with the Azure Cosmos DB Emulator
When you change a database-backed feature, a successful HTTP response isn't enough. You need to know that the write reached storage, the application retrieved the updated record, and the next answer reflects it. The Azure Cosmos DB Emulator runs locally in Docker and lets us use the SDK we'll use in production. We'll develop against it first, then carry our tests into GitHub Actions. Each update to an open pull request must pass against a fresh emulator before we merge. Building on Theo van Kraay's local development walkthrough, we'll use FleetCharge, a Python demo built with Microsoft Agent Framework and F...
Are you getting everything you can from Your Visual Studio Subscription?
What if you could experiment with a new Azure service without requesting additional budget, prepare for your next technical certification using learning resources you already have, or build a dashboard without creating every UI component from scratch? If you're a Visual Studio subscriber, you may already have benefits that can help you do all three. Here’s a few possibilities you may not have considered: 1. What could you build with your Azure credits? Have you been curious about an Azure service but haven't had the opportunity, or the budget, to try it? Maybe you want to experiment with an AI-powered a...
Why didn’t we use CoRegisterInitializeSpy to clean up the unmarshalable delegate?
Looking more closely at the function's behavior and requirements.
Develop enterprise-grade apps with SharePoint Embedded
Taking an enterprise application from development to production requires confidence that it can scale, stay reliable, and be governed effectively. Recent SharePoint Embedded updates give developers clearer guidance for making those decisions, from understanding limits and managing throttling to choosing the right permissions. In this blog post, we highlight updates that help you: Read on to get more details and watch the SharePoint Embedded presentation below to learn more about these updates: Plan for scale with clearer baselines and limits We updated the container st...
Embeddings and vector search in Microsoft Agent Framework for Go
Build semantic search with Go structs, generate embeddings through a common API, and connect vector retrieval to agent context and memory.
🚀 React Native Windows v0.85 is here
We're excited to release React Native Windows 0.85.0, built on React Native 0.85.3. React Native Windows v0.85 completes the move to the New Architecture, updates the Windows build toolchain, and adds new component capabilities along with touch, text, accessibility, and rendering fixes. 🔥 What's New in RNW v0.85? New Architecture only The legacy architecture has been removed. Apps still on the old architecture must migrate to Fabric before upgrading to 0.85. New projects already target the New Architecture. 🔗 New vs. Old Architecture · React Native for Windows Updated toolchain React Native Windows ...
Microsoft CppCon 2026 Trip Report
CppCon 2026 is a wrap! Microsoft returned to Aurora, Colorado, for a week of talks, technical discussions, and conversations with developers from across the C++ community. Microsoft C++ @ CppCon At our booth, we met people building games, financial systems, developer tools, embedded software, scientific tools, and other applications. Some were working with the latest language features, and others were maintaining and modernizing systems that have been in production for decades. Many talked to us about debugging, performance, build systems, or modern C++, and a growing number were experimenting with ways AI can ...
Microsoft.UI.Reactor: a C#-first way to build WinUI apps
If you caught our session at Microsoft Build 2026 or you've been watching the repo, you've seen this one taking shape in public for a while now, and a lot has changed since Build. Here's the longer tour: Microsoft.UI.Reactor, an experimental C# framework that brings the MVU (Model-View-Update) pattern to WinUI desktop apps. No XAML files, no code-behind, no ViewModels. Two things before the fun part. Reactor is experimental: no support policy, no API guarantees, published this early on purpose because we'd rather hear we got the design wrong now than once people have shipped on it. And it is not a replacemen...
Advanced Shader Delivery is Available Now Across Hardware and Coming Soon to Other Storefronts
A few weeks ago, we announced that Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD) is available for Gears of War: E-Day and teased that the feature is coming to devices across Windows 11. Today, we’re proud to announce that Advanced Shader Delivery is broadly available across the Windows ecosystem on devices powered by AMD, Intel, Nvidia, and Qualcomm! ASD addresses a PC ecosystem wide challenge by delivering shaders at download of a title- reducing overall loading time, reducing shader stutter in game, and saving on power consumption. Check out the system requirements below for supported hardware and graphics drivers. &nbs...
Pylance + Pyrefly: bring your preferred type checker to Visual Studio Code
Announcing the Type Server Protocol and our partnership with Meta
Introducing Agentic Autofix for code and dependencies
Fixing a vulnerability takes more than knowing where it is. You need a change that follows your coding standards and works with the rest of your code. Copilot Autofix for GitHub Advanced Security for Azure DevOps now runs on an agentic foundation. It also supports dependency vulnerability fixes and code scanning alerts from third-party tools. Select the alert to address, Autofix works in the background on a proposed change in your existing Azure DevOps workflow, and your team keeps the final decision on what to merge. Agentic fixes use your repository context Your team might require a shared validation helper...
Compare today’s code with an earlier commit
Compare a historical commit with your working tree without checking out the commit or leaving your branch.
Announcing GA of Safe Key Rotation in Azure Cosmos DB
In our previous post, we introduced the private preview of Safe Key Rotation, a feature that helps Azure Cosmos DB customers avoid service disruptions during key rotations. By showing when each account key was last used, it helps teams make informed decisions before rotating keys or moving to Entra ID. This capability addresses a common challenge: keys that appear unused may still support critical applications, which can lead to unexpected outages if they are rotated too soon. What is new? With general availability, we are expanding this capability to give you even more control and confidence when managi...
Why didn’t we use RoRegisterForApartmentShutdown to clean up the unmarshalable delegate?
Too many requirements, some of which bring us full circle.
PowerToys 0.102 is here: new mouse utilities, Command Palette improvements and much more
We're back with a fresh PowerToys release! This one brings two new mouse utilities, Mouse Button Lock and CursorHide, an optional quick-access shelf for Command Palette, snip dictation in ZoomIt, and a set of new command-line tools for automating PowerToys. Color Picker and Text Extractor also move to WinUI 3, and Keyboard Manager picks up some long-requested remapping features. Get the update by checking for updates in PowerToys or by heading to the release page. Let's dive in! 🖱️ Mouse Button Lock and CursorHide Holding a mouse button down during a long drag or selection can be tiring. With Mouse Button Loc...
Go 1.27.3-1 and 1.26.10-1 Microsoft builds now available
A new release of the Microsoft build of Go including security fixes is now available for download.
Announcing TypeScript 7.1 Beta
Today we're excited to announce the beta release of TypeScript 7.1! Let's take a look at what's new in TypeScript 7.1! Support for Import Attributes in Ambient Modules Import attributes are metadata that are attached to import statements. Typically, they're meant to instruct runtimes and bundlers on how to interpret the content of an import, as well as the shape of the resulting module. For example, Everything in the object following the keyword is an import attribute. Environments like browsers can't simply decide how to deal with an import based on file name extensions like . Specifying tells what...
Activatable Extension Points
We often talk about "running an application", "launching an app", or "starting an app". This conjures up visions of spinning up a new process, giving the application life. For packaged applications, Windows has a specific term for bringing an application to life: activation. Bringing a packaged process to life involves more than ordinary unpackaged process creation. Windows calls this machine "activation". Activation does more than simply create a process. Among other things, it creates the new process with the appropriate package identity. Activation also verifies the package is in an appropriate state befor...
Azure DevOps available in Microsoft Copilot Cowork
The Azure DevOps Plugin is now available in Microsoft Copilot. It brings Azure DevOps directly into Copilot Cowork, so you can work with your projects, work items, pull requests, test plans, pipelines, and more without switching to Azure DevOps. The plugin also includes built-in skills to help with everyday development tasks. You can quickly see what needs your attention, triage bugs, and turn ideas or feature requests into structured backlogs with epics, features, user stories, and acceptance criteria. All of this can be done directly from Copilot. Copilot Cowork with Azure DevOps One of the biggest advantage...
Can a local git remote replace GitHub in your agent eval?
We swapped GitHub for a local git remote in our agent evals. Rebasing and pushing on request were unaffected, but the agent pushed on its own 11 points less often. Here's when a local remote is a safe shortcut, and when it isn't.
Microspeak: Drain the slide, back-up slides
PowerPoint presentation jargon.
Work IQ: the new retrieve tool
The new Work IQ Retrieve tool grounds agents in the context of work, helping them reason over the right information and deliver more relevant, trustworthy responses. With one retrieval layer across work sources, developers can give agents richer organizational context without building separate search systems. Retrieve: grounded answers across work sources The new MCP tool named searches a user's workplace data—including email, files, meetings, Teams messages and people, as well as connected enterprise sources. As with any other tool offered by Work IQ, each user will be able to retrieve information only fr...
Go 1.27.2-2 Microsoft build now available
A new release of the Microsoft build of Go is now available for download.
Get Your .NET MAUI App Ready for Xcode 27
Use an agent skill to prepare your existing .NET MAUI app for Xcode 27, with the scene lifecycle changes and manual migration steps explained.
Bring Your Own Model to the GitHub Copilot SDK with C#
The GitHub Copilot SDK gives your application an agent runtime. BYOK lets you keep that runtime while sending model requests to your own Microsoft Foundry or Azure OpenAI deployment. Here is the complete C# setup.
Plan Your Java Upgrade Ahead of Microsoft’s 2027 Support Milestones
In April 2021, we announced the Microsoft Build of OpenJDK. We were starting with a preview of our Java 11 builds for Windows, Linux, and macOS. Today, if you're planning a Java upgrade on Azure, you have several generations of that work to build on: 11, 17, 21, and now 25. Java 8 has been part of that work too, with help from the fine folks at the Eclipse Foundation's Eclipse Adoptium project. Microsoft has supported Java 8 on Azure using their Eclipse Temurin builds of OpenJDK 8, rather than producing a Microsoft Build of OpenJDK 8. That collaboration goes back to the launch: our first Java 11 builds also used...
Organize and revisit tabs with the keyboard
Reorder your document tabs and return to them by visual position with new keyboard shortcuts.
Why do we need ud2 when int 6 is right there?
An interrupt is not a fault.
Browser automation tool in Microsoft Foundry is now GA
Build agents that automate tasks across public and private websites with managed browsers, native toolbox integration, Live View, and human control.
C++ futures part 5: std::future and std::shared_future
Getting the results back out.
MSVC Build Tools Version 14.52 Release Candidate Now Available
We are pleased to announce the availability of the release candidate for Microsoft C++ (MSVC) Build Tools version 14.52. With this release, C++23 is ready for production use and available through the /std:c++23 compiler option; see below for details. This is the last MSVC v14.52 preview before it moves to stable status and full support. You can download it from the Visual Studio 2026 Insiders Channel. As this is the release candidate, it is now the default toolset installed with C++ workloads in this channel. To check if it’s installed simply make sure one or both of these components are checked in the installer:...
What’s new in Microsoft Foundry | September 2026
Explore September's models, Routines, Tool Search, Model Router, and Insights through one two-agent workflow that turns public releases into a Foundry developer changelog.
Introducing dotnetup: A toolchain manager for .NET
Learn how the new dotnetup tool helps macOS and Linux developers install, manage, and update user-local .NET SDKs and runtimes.
Stop waiting on a failed build
Stop solution builds after the first project failure so you can return to fixing the error sooner.
C++ futures part 4: What if I want an immediate on-thread std::async?
Providing the case that the C++ language won't do.
AI Agents: Meet the Azure Cosmos DB vNext Emulator
Over a typical 2 day window, we record 10 times as many emulator sessions lasting more than 30 minutes for vNext as for the legacy emulator. Our bet is that agentic development is helping drive the difference! The appeal is straightforward: coding agents need a database they can run anywhere. They also need a database they can start, seed, test against and debug as they work. Our vNext emulator fits that workflow naturally. A different kind of developer With the vNext emulator, we're building for a broader idea of the developer: a person at a keyboard, a coding agent, or the two working together. The...
Vector stores in Agent Framework for Python: familiar foundations, streamlined for agents
Vector stores have been part of the Python experience in Semantic Kernel for some time. With Microsoft Agent Framework, we have ported that work forward rather than starting over. This post focuses on Python. For the .NET equivalent, see Use vector stores in .NET AI apps. The foundation remains familiar: typed record definitions, stores and collections, batch storage and retrieval, embedding generation, vector search, and a growing set of integrations. If you have used Semantic Kernel's vector-store APIs, you will recognize the overall model. At the same time, this is more than a straight p...
Canada’s 2026 time zone updates: guidance for Microsoft SQL
Affected locations in British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba will not turn their clocks back at 02:00 local time on November 1, 2026. They will remain at UTC−07:00, UTC−06:00, and UTC−05:00, respectively. Microsoft’s interim guidance for British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba describes the new Windows time zones and temporary workarounds. SQL Server on Windows requires the applicable Windows update—not a separate SQL Server product update. For SQL Server on Linux, Azure SQL Database, and Azure SQL Managed Instance, the following guidance applies when the new regional time zones are not yet available in ...
Azure MCP Server 3.0 stable release: More tools. More possibilities
Explore the new Azure MCP Server 3.0 stable release, with AI agent tools for Terraform, backup, recovery, and troubleshooting, plus stronger security defaults.
Build offline-first apps with Azure DocumentDB and PowerSync
Modern applications often need to work in places where network connectivity is slow, intermittent, or unavailable. Field service, retail, logistics, healthcare, and mobile SaaS applications are common examples. PowerSync recently introduced alpha support for Azure DocumentDB, giving developers a way to combine Azure DocumentDB as the cloud operational database with local SQLite databases on client devices. Applications can remain responsive and continue working offline while PowerSync synchronizes relevant data in the background. Note: PowerSync support for Azure DocumentDB is currently an alpha release. Be...
From extraction to action: Using grounding and confidence to build reliable document workflows
Learn how Azure Content Understanding grounding, field-level confidence, and calibration help teams prioritize human review and build reliable document workflows.
New tools, new workflows and the value of the Visual Studio Subscription: What we learned at VSLive! San Diego
What happens when developers who have spent decades working with Visual Studio start rethinking how they write code, learn new skills, and expand their access to development tools? At VSLive! San Diego, we had an opportunity to find out as developers gathered for five days of technical sessions, hands-on learning, and conversations about Visual Studio, .NET, AI, cloud, data, and modern application development. One of the most interesting things we heard in San Diego was how readily experienced developers are adopting new tools and workflows. GitHub Copilot is part of that story, and developers aren't...
C++ futures part 3: The mental model for std::async
Doing things later in different ways.
Announcing .NET 11 Release Candidate 2
.NET 11 Release Candidate 2 is available with improvements across libraries, runtime, SDK, MSBuild, NuGet, F#, ASP.NET Core, .NET MAUI, and Windows Forms.
October Patches for Azure DevOps Server
We are releasing new patches for our self‑hosted product, Azure DevOps Server. We strongly recommend that all customers stay up to date with the latest, most secure version of Azure DevOps Server. The most recent release, Azure DevOps Server, is available on the download page. The following versions have been patched. For more details on these updates, see the release notes: ⬇️Azure DevOps Server Patch Download ✅Verifying Installation To verify that the patch is installed, run the following command on the Azure DevOps Server machine using the patch installer you downloaded: Replace with the name of the...
Is it MSIX? Part 3: Find Package and Application Identity with TASKLIST and PowerShell
We previously determined how to programmatically retrieve a packaged process' package and application identity. Now let's find MSIX package identity using existing tools. TASKLIST.EXE Using the packaged app from our previous example, we know the "image name" (aka executable filename) and that its PID (process ID) is 7664. lists packaged processes and their package names: That's overkill when we're interested in a specific process. We can use the (filter) option to limit the output to our target process: Or we can specify the image name and get the same result: The column is actually the package fu...
Azure Content Understanding Prebuilt Analyzers: packaging domain knowledge for document AI
Learn how Azure Content Understanding prebuilt analyzers combine domain knowledge with grounding and confidence, and what Advanced Contextualization preview benchmarks show about quality, modeled cost, and latency.
C++ futures part 2: The mental model for std::promise, std::packaged_task
Building things out of the state.
Build AI-powered apps without creating a vector database
Developers building AI applications face a familiar challenge: how do you ground AI experiences in enterprise content while maintaining security, compliance, and governance? You can use the Microsoft 365 Copilot Retrieval API for SharePoint Embedded, which helps you add Microsoft 365 Copilot and agent experiences to your SharePoint Embedded apps when you want to control the grounding step, the prompt, and the model yourself. In addition, you can use the SharePoint Embedded Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, now available in public preview, to build and manage apps with a coding agent. Together, the...
WinUI Gallery 3.0 is here: TableView, Charts, InkCanvas and more
Hey WinUI developers! If you're new around here, WinUI Gallery is the go-to app for exploring WinUI 3 controls, samples, design guidance, and handy tools, all in one place. Today, we're excited to announce WinUI Gallery 3.0, the first version of the Gallery built on the experimental channel of the Windows App SDK. That means you can try upcoming WinUI controls and APIs in the Gallery as soon as they ship in an experimental release. 🧪 Embracing experimental Until now, new controls usually showed up in the Gallery after they reached a stable Windows App SDK release. By then, the APIs were mostly locked, and t...
.NET and .NET Framework October 2026 servicing releases updates
A recap of the latest servicing updates for .NET and .NET Framework for October 2026.
Durable Task in the Real World: What Problems Does It Actually Solve?
Five practical examples of when durable execution makes sense, when it does not, and what it means for AI agents.
C++ futures part 1: The mental model
Managing a value that is produced later.
Go 1.27.2-1 and 1.26.9-1 Microsoft builds now available
A new release of the Microsoft build of Go including security fixes is now available for download.
One way of thinking about access specifiers in C++/WinRT implementation types
Mapping them to concepts from C# and the now-defunct C++/CX.
Introducing the Agent Experience (AX) Practitioner Playbook
AI coding agents now pick the SDK, the version, and the pattern for your developers. The AX Practitioner Playbook is our method for finding out whether they get your technology right, and for fixing the sources they rely on when they don't.
Introducing the Native Confluent Cloud Connector Experience in Azure Cosmos DB!
Co-authored with Praveen Raja P Azure Cosmos DB already includes a powerful event foundation: change feed provides a durable, ordered record of item changes within each logical partition. It is ideal for reacting to operational data as it changes, building projections, and driving workflows directly from the database. Confluent Cloud adds a complementary event layer rather than replacing change feed. Kafka topics can carry database changes alongside explicit business events from many systems, retain them independently from the operational database, and let multiple consumer groups process and replay each s...
Dynamic Workflows in Azure Functions Hosted Skills: Durable, AI-Led Work for Event-Driven Apps
Azure Functions is the event-driven application platform, and Hosted Skills adds AI reasoning to your app. Dynamic Workflows give the app a durable way to carry out AI-led, multi-step work after the triggering invocation is finished. The model writes a plan (a DAG) one time, and Durable Functions runs it. In our benchmark, token use decreased by 56-93% and end-to-end latency decreased by 77-95%, with the same output quality.
Adding persistence to the Aspire dashboard
Aspire 13.6 adds dashboard persistence and run history. Revisit telemetry after a restart, retain more data, and explore the SQLite and Dapper implementation behind it.