VS Code's New Autopilot and AI Dev Tools
VS Code's weekly releases add Autopilot for fully autonomous agents, browser debugging with zoom control, chat customizations UI, per-model reasoning sliders, video carousels, and refreshed themes.
Autonomous Agents and AI Workflow Boosts
Autopilot, now in preview, enables hands-off agent operation: select it from the dropdown to auto-approve tool calls, retry errors automatically, respond to questions without input, and let agents complete tasks independently. This cuts manual oversight for complex workflows.
Chat customizations get a dedicated editor with tabs for custom instructions, prompt files, custom agents, and agent skills. It includes an embedded code editor with syntax highlighting and validation, centralizing management to speed up iteration on AI interactions.
Reasoning models like GPT 5.4 or Claude Sonnet 4.6 show a 'thinking effort' submenu in the model picker. Adjust reasoning depth per request directly—no settings dives needed—and VS Code remembers your choice per model across chats, streamlining experimentation.
Browser Debugging and UI Polish
New 'editor browser debug' type supports launch and attach configs, letting you step through code in the integrated browser for precise session troubleshooting.
Browser zoom is now independent of VS Code's window zoom. Use Cmd/Ctrl + = or - to adjust without distorting the IDE UI, improving visibility during web debugging.
Carousel attachments now handle videos: play and navigate them from chat or explorer context menus, expanding multimodal support.
VS Code ships refreshed default light and dark themes (marked by year), updating the modern look while preserving usability—no learning curve hit.
These features build on weekly releases; full notes cover more. Prioritize Autopilot and customizations for AI-heavy dev to ship faster.