GitHub Copilot in VS Code v1.140

GitHub Copilot in VS Code v1.140 was released on September 30, 2026.

Summary

Agents Copilot harness The Copilot harness adds exciting new agent functionality to VS Code while keeping the way you work familiar. It's powered by the Copilot SDK, so its behavior and capabilitie...

Release Notes

Agents Copilot harness The Copilot harness adds exciting new agent functionality to VS Code while keeping the way you work familiar. It's powered by the Copilot SDK, so its behavior and capabilities are consistent with other Copilot products, including the standalone GitHub Copilot app and the Copilot CLI. To start using the Copilot harness, select it from the harness picker in the chat input. In this release, it might already be the default selection for you. You can continue working as you normally do. The harness runs in a dedicated agent host HydraFusion is an adaptive model orchestration system that chooses the models and workflow for each coding task. It can solve a task with one model, escalate to a stronger model, or have another model critique and revise the result. This approach aims to improve result quality while balancing speed and cost, without requiring you to coordinate models yourself. Eligible users with preview features enabled can select Hydra... Multi-folder sessions (Experimental) Multi-folder sessions let you coordinate related work across repositories or isolated worktrees in one session. Previously, every chat in a multi-chat session shared the same folder and checkout. In this release, each chat can use its own folder or worktree without changes leaking between chats. Each chat uses its folder for its terminal, tasks, changes, pull request, and Agent merge state. Chats that use the same folder share that state. In t... Archive chats in a session Keep the rest of a session active when one chat finishes its work. Because sessions can contain multiple chats, select Mark as Done to archive only the finished peer chat, not the entire session. To restore it with its title and transcript intact, select the Done filter in the sessions list. Automatic Dev Container cleanup Settings: setting(chat.agentHost.devContainer.enabled), setting(chat.agentHost.devContainer.idleTimeout) (Agents window only) When all sessions that use a Dev Container are inactive for five minutes, VS Code stops the container. It restarts automatically when you continue working. Marking as done or deleting the last session removes the container. Faster Dev Container startup Setting: setting(chat.agentHost.devContainer.enabled) (Agents window only) Dev Container sessions let agents use your project's tools and dependencies in an isolated environment. Fresh containers can reuse cached VS Code Server and CLI downloads, which reduces setup time and repeated downloads across projects. Choose the session relationship and workspace for delegated work Make two separate decisions when you ask an agent to delegate work. First, decide whether the task belongs to the current session's plan or deliverable. Then specify a workspace only if the task needs repository files, and request a worktree only if file changes need isolation. Related work can still use a different workspace. Create a peer chat for related work: Ask the agent to create a peer chat in the current session. To reuse the current workspace and checkout, say so in your prompt. Because the peer chat shar... Create workspace-less chats on remote agent hosts Setting: setting(sessions.chat.unifiedWorkspacePicker.enabled) (Agents window only) Agent Host lets you run and track agent sessions on a remote host. This release adds support for running workspace-less chats on a remote host. Select a connected host from the unified workspace picker without choosing a workspace. The Chat entry identifies the selected host, so you can confirm where the session runs before you start. Remote folders also appear alongside... Delegate tasks to remote agent hosts (Experimental) Settings: setting(chat.remoteAgentHostsEnabled), setting(chat.remoteSessions.tools.enabled) (Agents window only) Your agent can delegate work to connected remote agent hosts from the Agents window, without you selecting a host in a picker for each task. The new built-in tools let your agent: Discover hosts, models, resource capacities, and session load with listagenthosts. Start a session with createremotesession. Specify a host, or let autom... Personalize new-session welcome phrases (Experimental) Settings: setting(sessions.chat.experimental.welcomePhrases), setting(sessions.chat.experimental.welcomeName), setting(accessibility.verbosity.newSessionWelcome) (Agents window only) Add some personality to the Agents window with an optional welcome heading when you create a new session in the Agents window. The heading shows one of five phrases, such as What are we building? or Let's ship something, and can append your first name from your GitHub profile. Welcome phrases are off by default. When enabled, you ca... Improved session composer controls (Experimental) Settings: setting(sessions.chat.experimental.newSessionComposerLayout), setting(sessions.chat.unifiedWorkspacePicker.enabled) (Agents window only) The experimental session composer layout reduces the need to move between separate parts of the Agents window. In a new session, the workspace, branch, worktree, and harness controls are grouped above the chat input. Enable both settings to use the layout. The unified workspace picker also has commands for moving directly to its controls. Use kb(sessions.focusNewSessionWorkspacePi... See recently completed sessions first The Done section in the Agents window now sorts sessions by when you marked them as done, with the most recently completed session listed first. This order stays the same when you switch between Created and Updated sorting and after you reload VS Code. More reliable agent orchestration (Experimental) Setting: setting(chat.agentHost.agentOrchestrationLimits) Coordination-heavy agent workflows are less likely to stop before the work is complete. This release raises the process-wide limits for agent-created sessions, chats, inter-session messages, and recursive session creation. For example, an agent can classify CI failures, delegate each fix to a separate session, and coordinate those sessions without exhausting the message limit before the work is complete. Reaching a limit blocks new orchestration actions but does not interr... Open a new session in the Agents window from a URL Open the Agents window from another tool or webpage with a workspace and an editable prompt ready for review. Use a URL with the agents/new path and the optional prompt and workspace query parameters. For example, this URL opens a new session with no workspace and the prompt already entered: text vscode://agents/new?prompt=Explain%20how%20this%20project%20runs%20its%20tests.%20Do%20not%20run%20anything%20yet. VS Code places the decoded prompt in the New Session composer without sending it. To select a workspace, add... Chat Persistent progress for agent responses (Experimental) Settings: setting(chat.experimental.persistentProgress), setting(chat.experimental.persistentProgressVerbosity) Long-running agent responses are easier to follow with persistent progress. When enabled, chat keeps a progress indicator visible at the bottom until the response finishes. Enabling persistent progress also improves the rendering and visibility of in-progress responses. Reasoning appears in separate collapsible previews, and tool calls remain visible while they run. With Compact verbosity, completed tool gro... Terminal output reflow Setting: setting(chat.tools.terminal.outputReflow) Since VS Code 1.132, terminal output in chat reflows to fit the width of the output preview. The new setting(chat.tools.terminal.outputReflow) setting lets you control this behavior. If you prefer output to keep a fixed width instead, disable the setting and scroll horizontally to read long lines. Reflow remains enabled by default. Use multiple chats in the editor window A session can contain multiple chats. Until now, the main chat with its nested peer chats appeared only in the Agents window. The editor window also shows them: the Sessions view lists the main chat with its peer chats nested underneath, next to the Chat view. Select any row to open that chat in the Chat view. MCP Add MCP servers to portable configuration files You can add MCP servers to portable configuration files from the MCP: Add Server flow, so you can use the same server configuration across compatible Copilot tools without editing JSON manually. For global servers, choose Copilot Global to save the server to $COPILOTHOME/mcp-config.json, or ~/.copilot/mcp-config.json when COPILOTHOME is not set. For workspace servers, choose .mcp.json to save the server at the workspace root.

View original release

Other Recent GitHub Copilot in VS Code Releases

• v1.142 (October 14, 2026)
• v1.138 (September 16, 2026)
• v1.137 (September 9, 2026)
• v1.136 (September 2, 2026)
• v1.135 (August 26, 2026)

Upgrading from v1.140? See all 2 releases since.

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