Visual Studio Blog
The official source of product insight from the Visual Studio Engineering Team
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Visual Studio 2026 is here: faster, smarter, and a hit with early adopters
Dear developers, We’re thrilled to announce that Visual Studio 2026 is now generally available! This is a moment we’ve built side by side with you. Your feed...
Latest posts
SDK-Style Support for Extension Projects
Starting in Visual Studio 18.5, you can create and build Visual Studio extensions (VSIX) using an officially supported SDK-style project. This brings VSIX projects into the modern build and deployment pipeline, improving incremental build performance and making the build → deploy → debug workflow more reliable. Install the Visual Studio extension development workload to get the templates and tooling and try it out for yourself! Note: Extensions written using the modern VisualStudio.Extensibility framework already supports SDK-style projects today. This update extends the same SDK-style experience to VSSDK-base...
Visual Studio April Update – Cloud Agent Integration
GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio is becoming more agentic with every release. This update brings cloud agent integration front and center, letting you start remote coding sessions without leaving the IDE.
From AI to .NET: 20 VS Live! Las Vegas Sessions You Can Watch Now
In March 2026, developers came together at VS Live! Las Vegas for a full week of technical learning, hands-on exploration, and a lot of great conversations about where software development is headed next. From AI-assisted development to modern .NET, cloud-native apps, and developer productivity, one thing was clear: the pace of change is not slowing down. If you were not able to attend, or if you want to revisit some of the strongest content from the event, we are now publishing 20 sessions from VS Live! Las Vegas on the Visual Studio YouTube channel. We are releasing about two sessions per day, so you can watc...
Azure MCP tools now ship built into Visual Studio 2022 — no extension required
Azure MCP tools now ship built into Visual Studio 2022 — no extension required Azure MCP tools are now built into Visual Studio 2022 as part of the Azure development workload — no separate extension to find, install, or update. You can enable over 230 tools across 45 Azure services directly in GitHub Copilot Chat and manage Azure resources, deployments, and diagnostics without leaving your IDE. If you already have the Azure development workload installed, you're one click away from getting started. What changed Previously, using Azure MCP tools in Visual Studio 2022 required you to install the "GitHub Copilo...
Stop Hunting Bugs: Meet the New Visual Studio Debugger Agent Workflow
We’ve all been there: a bug report lands in your inbox with a title like "App crashes sometimes" and zero reproduction steps. Your morning, which was supposed to be spent building new features, is now a forensic investigation. You’re setting scattershot breakpoints, staring at the call stack, and trying to guess what the original reporter was thinking. Debugging isn't just about fixing code; it’s about reducing uncertainty. Today, we’re taking a massive leap toward solving that problem by introducing a new, upgraded, guided workflow within our existing Debugger Agent in Visual Studio. Ending the "Guessi...
Take full control of your floating windows in Visual Studio
Make Visual Studio floating windows work perfectly with PowerToys FancyZones. Flip one option to get independent windows, better snapping, and less friction.
Bookmark Studio: evolving bookmarks in Visual Studio
Bookmarks in Visual Studio have always been a simple, reliable feature. Many developers use them regularly, and over the years we’ve heard consistent feedback from those users. Bookmarks were useful, but there were a few core gaps that kept them from being as effective and relevant as they could be. Navigation was one of the biggest pain points. You could move between bookmarks, but there was no easy way to jump directly to a specific bookmark using the keyboard. That made bookmarks harder to rely on once you had more than a few. Another common request was sharing. Bookmarks worked well for personal, local nav...
Visual Studio March Update – Build Your Own Custom Agents
This month's Visual Studio update gives you new ways to customize GitHub Copilot. Custom agents allow you to build specialized Copilot agents tailored to your team's workflow, backed by the tools and knowledge sources that matter to your project. Alongside that, agent skills bring reusable instruction sets, and a new find_symbol tool gives agents language-aware navigation across your codebase. Beyond agents, we're continuing to invest in the diagnostics experience with Copilot-powered profiling directly from Test Explorer and real-time perf tips during debugging. Security gets a boost too, with Copilot now hel...
Unlock More Power in Your Development Workflow: Syncfusion for Visual Studio Subscribers
A few months ago, I was talking with a developer who said something that stuck with me: “I love building apps. I just don’t love rebuilding the same UI controls over and over again.” That’s the reality for a lot of teams. You want to focus on your business logic, your architecture, your differentiation. Instead, you burn cycles wiring up grids, charts, document exports, dashboards, and signing workflows. If you’re a Visual Studio subscriber, there’s a benefit waiting for you that can change that: Syncfusion. And it’s included at no additional cost for eligible subscribers. Let me walk you thro...