Visual Studio Code adds agent development extension

Microsoft is offering a Microsoft Copilot Studio extension for its Visual Studio Code editor, enabling developers to build and manage Copilot Studio agents from VS Code.

Launched January 14, the extension can be accessed from the Visual Studio Marketplace. The extension is intended to make it possible to develop AI agents in a familiar editor, with source control, and with AI help when wanted, according to Microsoft. The tool provides language support, IntelliSense code suggestions and completions, and authoring capabilities for Copilot Studio agent components. Microsoft explained that as agents grow beyond a few topics and prompts, teams need the same development “hygiene” used for apps: source control, pull requests, change history, and repeatable deployments. The VS Code extension brings this workflow to Copilot Studio so developers can collaborate without losing velocity or governance, the company said.

With this extension, developers can build and refine a Copilot Studio agent with AI help in the same place they write other code. Developers can use GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, or any VS Code AI assistant to draft new topics, update tools, and quickly fix issues in an agent definition, then sync changes back to Copilot Studio to test and iterate. Microsoft has designed the agent for the way developers work, with support for standard Git integration for versioning and collaboration, pull request-based reviews, and auditability over time, with a history of modifications. The extension also supports VS Code ergonomics, with keyboard shortcuts, search, navigation, and a local dev loop.