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...
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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 ...
Faster .NET Upgrades Powered by GitHub Copilot
Introducing GitHub Copilot app modernization – Upgrade for .NET You probably don’t look forward to the process of modernizing your applications. It can be time consuming, risky, and full of manual toil. Today we’re changing that. We’re thrilled to introduce the public preview of GitHub Copilot app modernization - Upgrade for .NET, an AI-powered experience that helps you bring your .NET applications to the latest version quicker and more confidently than ever before. Powered by GitHub Copilot and Agent Mode, it serves as an intelligent upgrade companion that understands your code, determines the right upgrade ...
How to Watch Microsoft Build 2025 Online
Microsoft Build 2025 Is Here! — How to Make the Most of It Virtually It’s that time again—Microsoft Build has started! Microsoft Build 2025 runs this week (May 19–22)—and now’s the perfect time to catch the sessions live or watch past sessions on-demand. This year, Build is more accessible than ever. Every keynote, breakout session, demo theater, and even our hands-on labs are available to stream—live or on-demand—completely free. No travel. No ticket. Just you, your browser, and some of the best developer content of the year. I’ve had the privilege of working alongside our Product Managers and Engineeri...