Visual Studio Code 1.111

Release date: March 9, 2026

Downloads: Windows: x64 Arm64 | Mac: Universal Intel silicon | Linux: deb rpm tarball Arm snap

Welcome to the 1.111 release of Visual Studio Code, the first of our weekly Stable releases! This release further enhances the agent experience with the following features:

Agent permissions: adjust the autonomy level of your agents for each session.
Autopilot (Preview): let your agents iterate autonomously until they complete their task.
Agent-scoped hooks (Preview): attach pre- and post-processing logic for an agent without affecting other chat interactions.
Agent troubleshooting: troubleshoot agent behavior and customizations with debug events snapshots.

Happy Coding!

If you'd like to read these release notes online, go to Updates on code.visualstudio.com.

Insiders: Want to try new features as soon as possible?
You can download the nightly Insiders build and try the latest updates as soon as they are available.
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Autopilot and agent permissions

Setting: chat.autopilot.enabled Open in VS Code Open in VS Code Insiders

The new permissions picker in the Chat view lets you control how much autonomy the agent has. The permission level applies only to the current session. You can change it at any time during a session by selecting a different level from the permissions picker.

You can choose from the following permission levels:

Permission level	Description
Default Approvals	Uses your configured approval settings. Tools that require approval show a confirmation dialog before they run.
Bypass Approvals	Auto-approves all tool calls without showing confirmation dialogs and automatically retries on errors.
Autopilot (Preview)	Auto-approves all tool calls, automatically retries on errors, auto-responds to questions, and the agent continues working autonomously until the task is complete.

Screenshot showing the permissions picker in the Chat view with Default Approvals, Bypass Approvals, and Autopilot options.

Autopilot (Preview)

Autopilot is enabled by default in Insiders. You can activate it in Stable by enabling chat.autopilot.enabled Open in VS Code Open in VS Code Insiders .

Behind the scenes, the agent stays in control and iterates until it signals completion by calling the task_complete tool.

Note: Bypass Approvals and Autopilot bypass manual approval prompts and ignore your configured approval settings, including for potentially destructive actions like file edits, terminal commands, and external tool calls. The first time you enable either level, a warning dialog asks you to confirm. Only use these levels if you understand the security implications.

Learn more about Autopilot and agent permissions in our documentation.

Agent scoped hooks (Preview)

Setting: chat.useCustomAgentHooks Open in VS Code Open in VS Code Insiders

Custom agent frontmatter now supports agent-scoped hooks that are only run when you select the specific agent or when it's invoked via runSubagent. This lets you attach pre- and post-processing logic to specific agents without affecting other chat interactions.

To create an agent-scoped hook, define it in the hooks section of the YAML frontmatter of your .agent.md file.

To try this feature, enable the chat.useCustomAgentHooks Open in VS Code Open in VS Code Insiders setting. For more information, see Agent-scoped hooks in our documentation.

Debug events snapshot

To help you understand and troubleshoot agent behavior, you can now attach a snapshot of agent debug events as context in chat by using #debugEventsSnapshot. Use it to ask the agent about loaded customizations, token consumption, or to troubleshoot agent behavior.

You can also select the sparkle chat icon in the top-right corner of the Agent Debug panel to add the debug events snapshot as an attachment to the chat composer. Selecting the attachment opens the Agent Debug panel logs, filtered to the timestamp when the snapshot was taken.

Screenshot of the option to attach debug events snapshot to chat from the Agent Debug panel.

Learn more about Debugging chat interactions in our documentation.

Chat tip improvements

The chat experience evolves rapidly and we want to make sure you are aware of new features and improvements. We redesigned the chat tips experience to better surface relevant tips at the right time in your chat journey.

Chat tips now guide you through a structured onboarding journey. Foundational tips, such as using the Plan agent and creating a custom agent are shown first. After you complete or dismiss the foundational tips, quality-of-life tips like experimental settings or generating Mermaid diagrams are shown in random order.

Screenshot of the redesigned chat tips experience, showing a tip for using the init command.

Additional chat tip improvements include:

Tips are only displayed when a single chat session is visible, such as in the Welcome view or Chat view. If multiple chat editors are open, tips are hidden to reduce clutter.
Tips include keyboard shortcuts to help you discover relevant key bindings.
Tips are hidden after you act on or dismiss them for the current session.
We added tips for the /init and /fork slash commands. The /init tip helps you discover the command for initializing project configuration, and the /fork tip introduces manual conversation forking, which lets you branch a conversation to explore different approaches.

Setting: terminal.integrated.experimental.aiProfileGrouping Open in VS Code Open in VS Code Insiders

AI CLI terminal profiles, such as GitHub Copilot CLI, are now displayed in a dedicated group at the top of the terminal profile dropdown for improved discoverability. To enable this feature, turn on the terminal.integrated.experimental.aiProfileGrouping Open in VS Code Open in VS Code Insiders setting.

Extension authoring

Basic IntelliSense for localized strings in extension package.json files

VS Code supports localizing strings in an extension's package.json. This iteration, we added a few basic IntelliSense features that make working with these localized strings easier.

Go to Definition: Jump to or peek at the definition of a localized string in the package.nls.json file.
Find all References: See all the places a localized string is referenced in either the package.json or package.nls.json file.

Engineering

With the move to weekly Stable releases, we continue to improve our engineering processes to ship high-quality features at a faster pace.

Test plan item creation

We added a one-click experience for creating test plan items from feature request issues. This reduces the manual steps needed to set up structured testing plans for new features.

Verification step generation

As test plan items are assigned randomly to engineers, clear verification steps are crucial for efficient and effective testing. We added a button to generate verification steps on relevant issues. This helps ensure that issues have clear, structured steps for verifying fixes and features before they are closed.

Automatic PR media attachment to linked issues

When you merge a pull request that includes an image or GIF in its description, the media content is now automatically posted as a comment on the linked issue. This streamlines the verification process by making it easier to see the visual demonstration of a fix or feature directly on the issue.

Chat showcase pipeline

A new automated pipeline processes issues that are labeled with chat-showcase. When a showcase issue is identified, a corresponding chat tip issue is automatically created, making it easier to add tips for features.

Deprecated features and settings

New deprecations in this release

None

Upcoming deprecations

Edit Mode is officially deprecated as of VS Code version 1.110. Users can temporarily re-enable Edit Mode via VS Code setting chat.editMode.hidden Open in VS Code Open in VS Code Insiders . This setting will remain supported through version 1.125. Beginning with version 1.125, Edit Mode will be fully removed and can no longer be enabled via settings.

Notable fixes

Thank you

Contributions to vscode:

@cathaysia (cathaysia): fix(json.schemaDownload.trustedDomains): avoid always update json.sch… PR #298423
@eliericha (Elie Richa)
- include debug extension host env in shell env (#_241078) PR #298276
- Include remote debug extension host env in remote terminal shell env PR #299007
@jaidhyani (Jai Dhyani): editor: add 'foldedLine' unit to cursorMove command PR #296106
@neruthes (Neruthes 0x5200DF38): fix editor punctuation width PR #297741
@RajeshKumar11: MCP Gateway: avoid blocking list calls on startup PR #298040
@Rohan5commit (Rohan Santhosh): docs: fix duplicated wording in proposed API comment PR #298522
@sanchirico (John Sanchirico): Fix chat terminal flicker during streaming PR #298598

Contributions to vscode-copilot-chat:

@24anisha (Anisha Agarwal): Exempt Search Subagent tool result from write to disk PR #4219
@arieluchka (Ariel Agranovich): docs: incorrect documented jaeger port. <------ easy fix PR #4251
@bharatvansh (Ayush Singh): Avoid reporting subagent token usage to the context window widget PR #3515

Contributions to language-server-protocol:

@dietrichm (Dietrich Moerman): Fix link to Neovim's LSP documentation PR #2236
@MariaSolOs (Maria Solano): Update metamodel PR #2234

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.