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Release date: July 22, 2026
Downloads: Windows: x64 Arm64 | Mac: Universal Intel silicon | Linux: deb rpm tarball Arm snap
Welcome to the 1.130 release of Visual Studio Code. This release brings agent host improvements, faster review workflows in the Agents window, better chat visibility, and smarter terminal link handling.
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The agent host: Run sessions in a dedicated process that you can connect to from multiple VS Code windows.
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Agents window improvements (Preview): Review multi-file changes faster with compact diffs, file-level stats, and worktree support across harnesses.
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Assisted tool approvals: Reduce approval interruptions by letting the model evaluate tool-call risk during agent tasks.
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Clickable file links in Git diffs with mnemonic prefixes: Open files directly from diff output when mnemonic prefixes are enabled.
Happy Coding!
VS Code is rolling out gradually to all users. Use Check for Updates in VS Code to get the latest version immediately.
To try new features as soon as possible, download the nightly Insiders build, which includes the latest updates as soon as they are available.
Agents
The agent host
As mentioned in our last release, we're rearchitecting how agent sessions work in VS Code around the agent host - a dedicated process that runs agent harnesses such as Copilot, Claude, and Codex, based on the Agent Host Protocol (AHP). Because a session lives in its own process, the same session can be connected to and rendered from multiple VS Code windows at once. The agent host's Copilot agent is powered by the Copilot SDK, which means that its behavior and functionality is aligned with the Copilot CLI, the standalone GitHub Copilot app, and other Copilot products.
Learn more about the VS Code Agent Host architecture.
We're actively developing the agent host and progressively rolling it out to users in both the editor window and the Agents window. To opt in, enable
chat.agentHost.enabled
This setting is managed at the organization level. Contact your administrator to change it. and then pick an agent host harness from the harness dropdown. The screenshot below shows how to select the Copilot
harness on the agent host in the editor window:
As we continue to invest in the agent host, some features might only be available when an agent runs on it. Those features link back to this section and, where relevant, note any additional settings that enable them (for example, chat.agents.claude.preferAgentHost to enable the Claude agent on the agent host).
If you have any feedback or requests while using the agent host, please let us know by filing an issue.
Assisted tool approvals
Setting: chat.assistedPermissions.enabled
Repeated tool approval prompts can interrupt long-running agent tasks. With assisted permissions, the language model evaluates the risk of each tool call and decides whether the tool can run or should require your approval.
Enable the setting to add Assisted permissions to the permissions picker for agents that run on the agent host. The following video compares default approvals with assisted permissions:
Agents window improvements (Preview)
The Agents window includes several updates that make it easier to review changes and manage chats. Updates that require a session running on the agent host are called out below.
File-level diff statistics
Each file header in the Changes editor shows live insertion and deletion counts next to the file path. You can quickly assess the size of each file's changes while scanning a multi-file diff.
Compact multi-file diff view
The multi-file diff uses a more compact gutter that removes empty space before the code. File headers, line numbers, and unchanged-region controls share a consistent alignment, which leaves more room for reviewing changes in a narrow editor.
Compact quick chats
Quick chats, which run on the agent host, use compact, single-line rows in the sessions list. Regular sessions retain a second line with change statistics, status, and timestamps, making quick chats easier to distinguish and leaving more room for project sessions.
Worktree support for all agent harnesses
Agent harnesses running on the agent host support worktree isolation. The New Worktree checkbox in the Agents window was previously only supported by the Copilot harness. Claude and Codex sessions also run in a Git worktree, making it easier to spin up parallel sessions for different features in the same workspace regardless of harness.
Chat
Chat timestamps
Setting: chat.verbose
Timestamps are shown for chat requests and responses. Hover over the message toolbar to view the timestamp and elapsed time for a chat interaction. You can disable this with chat.verbose .
Aggregate AI credit usage for Copilot Business and Enterprise
Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise users can now see their aggregate AI credit usage for the current billing cycle directly in the Copilot status menu. Previously, credit usage was only surfaced when a user-level budget was configured, leaving many organization-managed users without visibility into how many credits they had consumed.
Now, when no user-level budget is set, the status menu displays the total number of credits used so far in the billing cycle. This gives you an at-a-glance view of your consumption, so you can better understand your usage patterns without leaving the editor.
Terminal
Clickable file links in Git diffs with mnemonic prefixes
You can open file links directly from Git diff output in the terminal when Git's diff.mnemonicPrefix
option is enabled. VS Code recognizes prefixes such as i/
for the index and w/
for the working tree, and removes the prefix from the link target so the correct file opens.
When mnemonic prefixes are enabled, VS Code also recognizes the numeric 1/
and 2/
prefixes produced by git diff --no-index
.
Engineering
The VS Code repository is compiled using the release version of TypeScript 7. We also switched to the release version of the TypeScript 7 extension. Read the TypeScript 7.0 release announcement from the TypeScript team.
Thank you
Contributions to vscode
:
- @accnops (Arthur Cnops)
- Voice: opt out of backend auto-narration (auto_narrate: false) PR #325799
- voice: send request_narration only after session context is sent PR #325928
- voice: NACK + client revalidation for dropped narration PR #325966
- @ahmadawais (Ahmad Awais): Detect Command Code as an agent CLI for terminal tab titles PR #324417
- @AntonioLujanoLuna (Antonio Lujano Luna): Fix BYOK Anthropic endpoints sending PDFs as image blocks PR #324960
- @arham766 (Shahrier Islam Arham): chore: bump windows-process-tree to 0.8.0 to fix UTF-8 command lines in Process Explorer PR #324283
- @clintharrison (Clint Harrison): Support mnemonic prefixes in git diff parsing for terminal links PR #298490
- @justjavac (迷渡): Decorations: fall back to lower-priority colors PR #325422
- @kobihikri (Kobi Hikri): Remove dead CODEOWNERS rules for deleted no-package-lock / no-yarn-lock workflows PR #325932
- @mirimadahmed (Mir)
- Handle voice barge-in playback PR #325808
- Fix voice barge-in protocol PR #326159
- Voice agent send voice language locale from the client PR #325931
- Voice agent always on streaming mode to support barge in PR #326165
- Add scoped live Voice transcripts PR #326134
- @pony-maggie (Lucas Ma)
- Avoid stale simple dialog folder updates PR #321357
- Allow simple file dialog to create nested folders PR #321355
- @rfeltis (Ralph Feltis): Fix quota trajectory billing period calculation PR #325895
- @smorimoto (Sora Morimoto): Recognise OCaml in settings labels PR #325457
- @spokodev: fix: match uppercase query characters in fuzzyContains PR #324047
- @UditDewan (udit): Fix tunnelProtocol context key always resolving to https on focus PR #325445
Issue tracking
Contributions to our issue tracking:
- @gjsjohnmurray (John Murray)
- @RedCMD (RedCMD)
- @IllusionMH (Andrii Dieiev)
- @albertosantini (Alberto Santini)
We really appreciate people trying our new features as soon as they are ready, so check back here often and learn what's new.
If you'd like to read release notes for previous VS Code versions, go to Updates on code.visualstudio.com.
Facts Only
* Visual Studio Code version 1.130 is released on July 22, 2026.
* The release includes agent host improvements, faster review workflows in the Agents window, better chat visibility, and smarter terminal link handling.
* The agent host runs sessions in a dedicated process accessible from multiple VS Code windows.
* Agents window improvements preview compact diffs, file-level stats, and worktree support across harnesses.
* Assisted tool approvals allow a model to evaluate tool-call risk before approval prompts appear.
* Clickable file links in Git diffs are enabled when mnemonic prefixes are used in the terminal.
* Chat timestamps are shown with the setting chat.verbose.
* Copilot Business and Enterprise users can view aggregate AI credit usage in the status menu.
* The VS Code repository is compiled using TypeScript 7 release version.
Executive Summary
Full Take
The evolution presented here suggests a strategic architectural shift toward process-based, decoupled agent execution, moving core agent functionality into an Agent Host Protocol (AHP). This move from monolithic session management to a dedicated host reflects a recognition that complex, multi-agent interactions benefit from isolation and shared state across different editor instances. The feature set—especially worktree support for all harnesses—points toward treating AI agents not merely as plugins but as independent runtime environments within the IDE context. Assisted tool approvals represent a step in balancing automation velocity with human oversight, injecting risk assessment directly into the workflow rather than relying solely on post-hoc review.
The pattern here is an incremental integration of complexity: the foundational layer (Agent Host) is established, and then features are layered on top to refine the interaction surface (Agents Window improvements, assisted approvals). The implication for cognitive sovereignty lies in how these new tools mediate the user's control over automated workflows. When functionality becomes deeply embedded via settings like `chat.agentHost.enabled`, the locus of control shifts from explicit command execution to managing system-level permissions and process isolation. The challenge is ensuring that the efficiency gained through compact views and automated approvals does not obscure the underlying agent behavior, potentially leading to a form of sophisticated automation drift where user oversight becomes reliant on trusting the host mechanism rather than deeply understanding the executed steps. What measures are in place to ensure the performance enhancements do not create opaque decision pathways for the human operator?
Sentinel — Human
This text exhibits the high structure and technical depth characteristic of official software release notes, supported by detailed attribution, suggesting a human origin within an engineering context.
