Streamline Agent-First Workflows with Agents Window
The new Agents Window (preview, ships with VS Code Insiders) creates a dedicated environment for agent development. Open it via the icon. It organizes sessions list (past/current tasks by project with stats) on upper left, customization controls (edit skills, instructions, hooks, MCP servers, plugins) on bottom left, main agent chat (prompts, progress, results, task continuation) in center, and changes view (edited files, diffs, merge updates) on right. Use it to manage agent tasks without cluttering the main editor; docs at https://aka.ms/agent-window.
Analyze and Fix Chat Customizations Automatically
Install the Chat Customizations Evaluations extension to evaluate prompt files, custom agents, instructions. Click Analyze button in customization files (e.g., prompt file) for assessments and optimization suggestions. Yellow squiggly lines highlight issues like high cognitive load; hover for explanations, apply quick fixes to adjust phrasing. This reduces manual trial-and-error, improving custom chat performance directly in VS Code.
Balance Speed and Quality in Copilot CLI
Configure thinking effort in Copilot CLI to control model reasoning per request, trading latency for response quality based on task needs. Remote control lets you monitor progress, approve, steer sessions from GitHub.com or mobile app while the CLI runs on the original machine. This enables hands-off long-running tasks without being tied to one device.
Build Agent Skills via VS Code Learn Courses
New docs section at https://aka.ms/VSCode/Learn offers video courses: Agent Foundations (intro to agent-first dev, build your first agent, review/control changes); Customization (UI for instructions, skills, custom agents, hooks). Use these to ramp up on agents quickly; more content planned.