Visual Studio Code 1.115 introduces VS Code Agents app

Visual Studio Code 1.115, the latest release of the Microsoft’s extrensible code editor, previews a companion app called Visual Studio Code Agents, optimized for agent-native development. Additionally, the agent experience in the editor is improved for running terminal commands in the background, according to Microsoft.

Introduced April 8, Visual Studio Code 1.115 can be downloaded from the Visual Studio Code website for Windows, Mac, or Linux.

Available as a Visual Code Insiders early access capability, the VS Code Agents app allows developers to run agentic tasks across projects, by kicking off multiple agent sessions across multiple repos in parallel. Developers can track session progress, view diffs inline, leave feedback for agents, and create pull requests without leaving the app, Microsoft said. Additionally, custom instructions, prompt files, custom agents, Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, hooks, and plugins all work in the Agents app, along with VS Code customizations such as themes.

VS Code 1.115 also introduces two changes designed to improve the agent experience for running terminal commands in the background. First, a new send_to_terminal tool lets an agent continue interacting with background terminals. For example, if an SSH session times out while waiting for a password prompt, the agent still can send the required input to complete the connection. Previously, background terminals were read-only, with only the get_terminal_output available to the agent to check the terminal’s status. This was particularly limiting when a foreground terminal timed out and moved to the background, because the agent could no longer interact with it.

Second, a new experimental setting, chat.tools.terminal.backgroundNotifications, allows an agent to automatically be notified when a background terminal command finishes or requires user input. This also applies to foreground terminals that time out and are moved to the background. The agent then can take appropriate action, such as reviewing the output or providing input via the send_to_terminal tool. Previously, when a terminal command was running in the background, the agent had to manually call get_terminal_output to check the status. There was no way to know when the command completed or needed input.

Also in VS Code 1.115, when an agent invokes the browser tool, the tool calls now have a more descriptive label and a link to go directly to the target browser tab, Microsoft said. Plus, the Run Playwright Code tool has improved support for long-running scripts. Scripts that take longer than five seconds to run (by default) now return a deferred result for the agent to poll.

VS Code 1.115 follows VS Code 1.114 by a week, with that release featuring streamlined AI chat. Updates to VS Code now arrive weekly instead of monthly, a change in cadence that Microsoft introduced with the VS Code 1.111 release on March 9.