Microsoft

Make Sense of Your Output Window with Copilot

Ever found yourself staring at the Output Window, overwhelmed by endless lines of logs and cryptic messages? You’re not alone! For years, developers have relied on the Output Window for critical build and debug information. But making sense of it—and translating it into action—has been a challenge. What if you could instantly ask questions about your […]
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New Test Run Hub in Azure Test Plans

Delivering high-quality software is a necessity and that’s why Azure Test Plans has introduced the all-new Test Run Hub, an enabler for teams who want to take control of their testing process and drive continuous improvement. What Makes the Test Run Hub a Must-Have? The Test Run Hub is designed to help teams track test […]
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Boost Your Copilot Collaboration with Reusable Prompt Files

Writing effective prompts for AI tools can be time-consuming and challenging. Cement those efforts by leveraging reusable prompt files. These custom prompts allow for quick access at the prompt box, and they’re automatically stored and shared with your teammates to make it easy to multiply your Copilot successes.   Reusable prompt files solve the prompt-writing challenge  Reusable prompt files let you write, save, and run prompts right […]
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Roadmap for AI in Visual Studio (September)

Today, we’re excited to share our public roadmap, which outlines the next steps in evolving Visual Studio with AI-powered agentic experiences. With every month, we aim to deliver smarter, faster, and more intuitive tools that enhance your coding experience. Disclaimer: The items outlined here represent ongoing work for the month. They are not commitments or […]
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Artificial Intelligence

The Visual Studio August Update is here – smarter AI, better debugging, and more control

The August 2025 update for Visual Studio 2022 (v17.14) is now available, and it’s all about helping developers stay focused, productive, and in control. Whether you’re building games, tuning performance, or exploring AI, this release brings meaningful improvements that make everyday development smoother and smarter. GPT-5 support now available We’re excited to announce that GPT-5 […]
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GitHub Copilot for Azure (Preview) Launches in Visual Studio 2022 with Azure MCP Support

The GitHub Copilot for Azure extension is now in Public Preview for Visual Studio 2022 (17.14+). It brings a curated set of Azure developer tools—exposed through the Azure MCP server—directly into GitHub Copilot Agent Mode in Visual Studio. The extension automatically installs and manages the Azure MCP server, so you can query resources, diagnose issues, […]
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Better Control over Your Copilot Code Suggestions

Copilot code completions and suggestions in the editor speed you up in your daily programming and coding activities, at every keystroke. They help you finish the line you’re typing or anticipate your next edit, making your workflow smoother and faster. At the same time, editor is where you focus and put in the deep work. […]
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Bring Your Own Model to Chat in Visual Studio

We’re excited to announce that you can now bring your own language model into Visual Studio Chat. You can connect API keys from providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google) to access a wider range of models. This makes it easy to test the latest releases, customize workflows, or run on infrastructure you control. What it unlocks […]
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Artificial Intelligence

Model Context Protocol (MCP) is Now Generally Available in Visual Studio 🎉

We’re excited to announce that MCP support is now GA in Visual Studio—unlocking richer, real-time context from your entire development stack and expanding the power of Agent Mode like never before. Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard that makes it easy for AI agents to connect with external tools and services—think of it […]
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Artificial Intelligence

Improving Codebase Awareness in Visual Studio Chat

Smarter Code Search in Visual Studio: From BM25 to Semantic Search  In our latest 17.14.11 release, we’ve made a significant leap forward in how we explore your code to retrieve meaningful context. Our new Remote Semantic Search integration helps you find exactly what you need faster and with greater precision than ever before.  By embedding […]
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From Redmond to San Diego: VS Live! Highlights, Session Examples, and What’s Next

There’s something special about hosting developers at Microsoft HQ — and this year’s Visual Studio Live! Redmond reminded me why I love these events. The energy in every room was electric. From the moment the first session kicked off, developers leaned in, asked smart, challenging questions, and took every opportunity to connect with the Product […]
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Azure Developer CLI: From Dev to Prod with Azure DevOps Pipelines

Building on our previous post about implementing dev-to-prod promotion with GitHub Actions, this follow-up demonstrates the same “build once, deploy everywhere” pattern using Azure DevOps Pipelines. You’ll learn how to leverage Azure DevOps YAML pipelines with Azure Developer CLI (azd). This approach ensures consistent, reliable deployments across environments. Environment-Specific Infrastructure The infrastructure approach is identical […]
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Azure DevOps OAuth Client Secrets Now Shown Only Once

We’re making an important change to how Azure DevOps displays OAuth client secrets to align with industry best practices and improve our overall security posture. Starting September, newly generated client secrets will be shown only once at the time of creation. After that, they will no longer be retrievable via the UI or API. This […]
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GPT-5 Now Available in Visual Studio

We’re excited to share that GPT-5, OpenAI’s latest frontier model, is now rolling out in GitHub Copilot for Visual Studio. GPT-5 offers faster responses and even better performance for writing and understanding code. This release brings a new level of capability to your development workflow, making it easier to move from idea to implementation. Try […]
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Hunting Living Secrets: Secret Validity Checks Arrive in GitHub Advanced Security for Azure DevOps

If you’ve ever waded through a swamp of secret scanning alerts wondering, “Which of these are actually dangerous right now?” — this enhancement is for you. Secret validity checks in GitHub Advanced Security for Azure DevOps (and the standalone Secret Protection experience) add a high‑signal field to each alert: Active (still usable), or Unknown (couldn’t […]
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Real-Time Security with Continuous Access Evaluation (CAE) comes to Azure DevOps

We’re thrilled to announce that Continuous Access Evaluation (CAE) is now supported on Azure DevOps, bringing a new level of near real-time security enforcement to your development workflows. 🔐 What Is CAE? Continuous Access Evaluation (CAE) is a feature from Microsoft Entra ID that enables near real-time enforcement of Conditional Access policies. Traditionally, Microsoft Entra […]
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Visual Studio 2015 Retirement: Support reminder for older versions of Visual Studio

Support for Visual Studio 2015 will end on October 14, 2025. If you’re using an older version of Visual Studio, we want to keep you productive and secure when using Visual Studio, and strongly recommend you upgrade to Visual Studio 2022, which brings the power of Copilot to your development workflow. It also contains key […]
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Automate your open-source dependency scanning with Advanced Security

Any experiences that require additional setup is cumbersome, especially when there are multiple people needed. In GitHub Advanced Security for Azure DevOps, we’re working to make it easier to enable features and scale out enablement across your enterprise. You can now automatically inject the dependency scanning task into any pipeline run targeting your default branch. […]
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From Manual Testing to AI-Generated Automation: Our Azure DevOps MCP + Playwright Success Story

In today’s fast-paced software development cycles, manual testing often becomes a significant bottleneck. Our team was facing a growing backlog of test cases that required repetitive manual execution—running the entire test suite every sprint. This consumed valuable time that could be better spent on exploratory testing and higher-value tasks. We set out to solve this […]
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Fresh Learning Paths Now Available on Pluralsight for VS Subscribers

We’ve been thrilled to see so many of you jump back into your Pluralsight benefit after our April 3rd announcement about extended access. Your enthusiasm for learning and leveling up with Visual Studio inspires us every day. If you haven’t had a chance to dive in yet—or want to explore what’s new since then—I wanted […]
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Azure Developer CLI: From Dev to Prod with One Click

This post walks through how to implement a “build once, deploy everywhere” pattern using Azure Developer CLI (azd) that provisions environment-specific infrastructure and promotes applications from dev to prod with the same build artifacts. You’ll learn how to use conditional Bicep deployment, environment variable injection, package preservation across environments, and automated CI/CD promotion from development […]
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July Patches for Azure DevOps Server

Today we are releasing patches that impact the latest version of our self-hosted product, Azure DevOps Server. We strongly encourage and recommend that all customers use the latest, most secure release of Azure DevOps Server. You can download the latest version of the product, Azure DevOps Server 2022.2 from the Azure DevOps Server download page. […]
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Markdown Support Arrives for Work Items

After several months in private preview and many bug fixes along the way, we’re excited to announce that Markdown support in large text fields is now generally available! 🎉 🦄 How it works By default, all existing and new work items will continue using the HTML editor for large text fields. However, you now have […]
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Better Models, Smarter Defaults: Claude Sonnet 4, GPT-4.1, and More Control in Visual Studio

We’re excited to share some major improvements to the Copilot experience in Visual Studio, including smarter default models, more choices, and easier ways to manage your usage. Smarter default model Copilot in Visual Studio now uses GPT-4.1 as the default model (previously 4o). In our testing, it delivers significantly better performance—faster responses, higher quality suggestions, […]
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Removing Azure Resource Manager reliance on Azure DevOps sign-ins

Azure DevOps will no longer depend on the Azure Resource Manager (ARM) resource (https://management.azure.com) when you sign in or refresh Microsoft Entra access tokens. Previously, Azure DevOps required the ARM audience during sign-in and token refresh flows. This requirement meant administrators had to allow all Azure DevOps users to bypass ARM-based Conditional Access policies to […]
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Inside Access: Join Us at VS Live! Redmond for a Week of Deep Developer Learning

A long time ago, I stood in a packed room at VS Live! and watched developers erupt in applause after a debugging demo shaved hours off a real-world problem. That was the moment I realized this wasn’t just a conference—it was a place where developers and toolmakers come together to push the craft forward. I’m […]
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Azure DevOps MCP Server, Public Preview

A few weeks ago at BUILD, we announced the upcoming Azure DevOps MCP Server: 👉 Azure DevOps with GitHub Repositories – Your path to Agentic AI Today, we’re excited to share that the local Azure DevOps MCP Server is now available in public preview. This lets GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code […]
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Agent mode is now generally available with MCP support

Copilot agent mode is the next evolution in AI-assisted development—and it’s now generally available in the Visual Studio June update. Agent mode turns GitHub Copilot into an autonomous pair programmer capable of handling multi-step development tasks from end to end. It builds a plan, executes it, adapts along the way, and loops through tasks until […]
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June Patches for Azure DevOps Server

Today we are releasing patches that impact the latest version of our self-hosted product, Azure DevOps Server. We strongly encourage and recommend that all customers use the latest, most secure release of Azure DevOps Server. You can download the latest version of the product, Azure DevOps Server 2022.2 from the Azure DevOps Server download page. […]
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Next edit suggestions available in Visual Studio

GitHub Copilot code completions, or gray text, are specialized in autocompleting unfinished code or providing helpful template code. In reality, coding activities are more diverse than writing new code. What if Copilot could better assist your coding not only with code generation, but your code editing activities as well? We are excited to announce next […]
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Restricting PAT Creation in Azure DevOps Is Now in Preview

As organizations continue to strengthen their security posture, restricting usage of personal access tokens (PATs) has become a critical area of focus. With the latest public preview of the Restrict personal access token creation policy in Azure DevOps, Project Collection Administrators (PCAs) now have another powerful tool to reduce unnecessary PAT usage and enforce tighter […]
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How to filter C++ Build Insights by project

Visual Studio 2022 version 17.14 comes with quality-of-life improvements to its C++ Build Insights integration that will make it easier for you to navigate large multi-project traces and handle long file names for your build inputs and artifacts. What is C++ Build Insights? C++ Build Insights is a powerful tool that lets you visualize and […]
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Cloud Academy: Unlock Your Azure Skills and Accelerate Your Career

When we launched the Cloud Academy benefit for Visual Studio Professional and Enterprise subscribers back in March 2025, our goal was simple: give you the hands-on, practical learning experience you need to confidently master Azure and cloud technologies — without spending a dime beyond your subscription. Why? Because in today’s fast-changing tech world, knowing theory […]
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Extension Manager updates in Visual Studio

The latest updates in Visual Studio 2022 introduced features specifically designed to improve how you manage extensions. These updates offer tools that help you automate processes, provide detailed controls for configuration, and enhance the user interface to streamline your development workflows. Seamless auto updates Visual Studio now automatically triggers updates whenever you open the Extension […]
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GitHub Secret Protection and GitHub Code Security for Azure DevOps

Following the changes to GitHub Advanced Security on GitHub, we’re launching the standalone security products of GitHub Secret Protection and GitHub Code Security for Azure DevOps today. You can bring the protection of Advanced Security to your enterprise with the flexibility to enable the right level of protection for your repositories. GitHub Secret Protection for […]
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Improve the commands in your extensions

As Visual Studio extension authors, our goal is to create tools that empower developers across diverse environments. A key part of this mission involves ensuring that your extension commands remain accessible and consistent across all Visual Studio locales. In your VSSDK extensions, by adding the CanonicalName property to your commands in the .vsct file, you […]
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Azure DevOps with GitHub Repositories – Your path to Agentic AI

GitHub Copilot has evolved beyond a coding assistant in the IDE into an agentic teammate – providing actionable feedback on pull requests, fixing bugs and implementing new features, creating pull requests and responding to feedback, and much more. These new capabilities will transform every aspect of the software development lifecycle, as we are already seeing […]
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