Visual Studio Code is adding a significant piece to its AI-assisted development strategy with a new companion app called VS Code Agents, now available in preview alongside VS Code Insiders.

A dedicated app for agentic development

VS Code Agents lets developers manage automated work sessions across multiple repositories at the same time, each isolated in its own worktree. From the app, you can track session progress, view diffs inline, give feedback to agents, and create pull requests without leaving the interface.

All customizations already configured in VS Code, from custom instructions to MCP servers, hooks, extensions, and themes, work in the Agents app without extra setup. The application installs automatically with VS Code Insiders and can be launched from your OS menu or the command palette.

Smarter integrated browser and terminal

This release also improves the editor’s built-in browser. When an agent calls the browser tool, the requests now show more descriptive labels and a direct link to the target tab. Playwright scripts that take longer than five seconds return a deferred result, preventing the agent from getting stuck waiting. macOS users get pinch-to-zoom trackpad gesture support.

On the terminal side, the main addition is the new send_to_terminal tool, which lets agents keep interacting with background terminals. Previously, moving a terminal to the background made it read-only, blocking agents from finishing tasks like entering an SSH password after a timeout. Now background terminals automatically notify the agent when commands finish, including exit codes and output.

Other improvements

Among smaller but useful additions: you can now paste images directly into the terminal with Ctrl+V or by dragging them, test coverage shows up in the minimap, and agentic sessions track file changes with full diff, undo, and redo support. Automatic SSH connection installs the CLI and starts agent host mode without manual intervention.

With the shift to weekly releases that started at version 1.111, Microsoft keeps a fast cadence. Version 1.115 arrives just seven days after 1.114, which simplified semantic workspace search and added TypeScript 6.0 support.