Visual Studio Blog
The official source of product insight from the Visual Studio Engineering Team
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Agent mode is now generally available with MCP support
Copilot agent mode is the next evolution in AI-assisted development—and it's now generally available in the Visual Studio June update. Agent mode turns GitHu...
Latest posts
Better Models, Smarter Defaults: Claude Sonnet 4, GPT-4.1, and More Control in Visual Studio
We’re excited to share some major improvements to the Copilot experience in Visual Studio, including smarter default models, more choices, and easier ways to manage your usage. Smarter default model Copilot in Visual Studio now uses GPT-4.1 as the default model (previously 4o). In our testing, it delivers significantly better performance—faster responses, higher quality suggestions, and greater efficiency overall. More models to choose from Want to try something else? You now have access to an ever-broader range of models: Model selections are now sticky, meaning your chosen m...
Inside Access: Join Us at VS Live! Redmond for a Week of Deep Developer Learning
A long time ago, I stood in a packed room at VS Live! and watched developers erupt in applause after a debugging demo shaved hours off a real-world problem. That was the moment I realized this wasn’t just a conference—it was a place where developers and toolmakers come together to push the craft forward. I’m excited to announce that I’ll be keynoting VS Live! Redmond 2025, August 4–8 at the Microsoft Conference Center—and I’d love for you to join us. This is more than just a developer event. It’s the one time each year when the Visual Studio, GitHub, and Azure engineering teams open our doors, share what we...
Next edit suggestions available in Visual Studio
GitHub Copilot code completions, or gray text, are specialized in autocompleting unfinished code or providing helpful template code. In reality, coding activities are more diverse than writing new code. What if Copilot could better assist your coding not only with code generation, but your code editing activities as well? We are excited to announce next edit suggestions, or NES for short, is now available in Visual Studio 2022 17.14 to further improve your coding experience. NES leverages the previous edits made and predicts the next edit to come, whether it’s an insertion, deletion, or mix of both. Unlike Cop...
How to filter C++ Build Insights by project
Visual Studio 2022 version 17.14 comes with quality-of-life improvements to its C++ Build Insights integration that will make it easier for you to navigate large multi-project traces and handle long file names for your build inputs and artifacts. What is C++ Build Insights? C++ Build Insights is a powerful tool that lets you visualize and optimize the build process of your C++ projects. It leverage MSVC's trace capture technology and uses the Windows ETW framework to collect detailed information about every build event, such as compilation, linking, code analysis, and more. You can then view and analyze this ...
Cloud Academy: Unlock Your Azure Skills and Accelerate Your Career
When we launched the Cloud Academy benefit for Visual Studio Professional and Enterprise subscribers back in March 2025, our goal was simple: give you the hands-on, practical learning experience you need to confidently master Azure and cloud technologies — without spending a dime beyond your subscription. Why? Because in today’s fast-changing tech world, knowing theory isn’t enough. You need to do — to experiment, build, troubleshoot, and grow your skills in a real environment. That’s exactly what Cloud Academy delivers. From Frustration to Confidence: Learning That Fits Your Style If you’re like many deve...
Extension Manager updates in Visual Studio
The latest updates in Visual Studio 2022 introduced features specifically designed to improve how you manage extensions. These updates offer tools that help you automate processes, provide detailed controls for configuration, and enhance the user interface to streamline your development workflows. Seamless auto updates Visual Studio now automatically triggers updates whenever you open the Extension Manager window. This ensures you are consistently working with the latest features and fixes without needing to manually initiate updates. Infobar notifications for applied updates An Infobar will now appear wh...
Improve the commands in your extensions
As Visual Studio extension authors, our goal is to create tools that empower developers across diverse environments. A key part of this mission involves ensuring that your extension commands remain accessible and consistent across all Visual Studio locales. In your VSSDK extensions, by adding the CanonicalName property to your commands in the .vsct file, you can achieve greater resilience and user satisfaction for your extension. And with a few simple tricks, you can make your command names a lot prettier as well. Why add the CanonicalName property? When a Visual Studio extension supports multiple locales, t...
VisualStudio.Extensibility: Editor classification and updates to user prompt
We continue to invest in the VisualStudio.Extensibility SDK to allow users like you to create extensions that run faster and smoother than ever before! VisualStudio.Extensibility helps you build extensions that run outside the main Visual Studio IDE process for improved performance, reliability, and installation without restarting Visual Studio. Additional benefits include a sleek and intuitive .NET 8-based API and comprehensive, well-maintained documentation to help you develop amazing extensions faster than ever before. For the latest up-to-date docs and installation instructions, visit https://aka.ms/Vi...
Connecting to Private NuGet Feeds Just Got Easier
The Visual Studio 2022 17.14 update is here, and it brings great quality-of-life improvements—especially around NuGet authentication. From context about the authentication needs of private NuGet feeds to a simplified account selection workflow, this update helps you stay focused on your code! If you haven’t already, download the latest Visual Studio update to take advantage of this and the rest of the improvements. Streamlining the NuGet authentication experience Over the past year, we’ve made significant strides to improve the identity and authentication experiences across Visual Studio 2022. For instance, we ...