Visual Studio

Visual Studio Administrator? Join our Private Marketplace Preview!

Organizations are increasingly looking for greater control over extensions within development environments. Driven by security, compliance, and internal governance requirements, teams want more visibility into how developers discover and acquire extensions. To address these needs, we’re excited to begin previewing Private Marketplace support in Visual Studio. Private Marketplace for Visual Studio For organizations familiar with […]
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16 Jul 2026

Pick, manage, and get the most from your models

You open the model picker, scroll past a dozen options, and pause. How are these models different? Which one should you actually use? And once you’re a few hundred messages deep, how much capacity is even left before things start dropping off? We’ve all been there. These are the kinds of questions Visual Studio now […]
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15 Jul 2026

Built-in Agent Skills Bring .NET and Azure Expertise into Visual Studio

Visual Studio now includes built-in Agent Skills, created by experts from the .NET and Azure teams, to help you better customize your agentic workflow and complete development tasks more efficiently, starting with the 18.8 Release. Agent Skills are reusable capabilities that enable your agent to perform structured tasks more reliably (to learn more about what […]
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15 Jul 2026

The Visual Studio Dev/Test Benefit: Freedom to Build, Test, and Experiment in Azure

One of the best parts of a Visual Studio Subscription is discovering benefits that can make your day-to-day development work easier and more cost effective. One benefit that deserves more attention is Azure Dev/Test pricing. In fact, it’s one of the most valuable benefits included with a Visual Studio Subscription. If you’re building cloud applications, testing new ideas, or maintaining multiple development environments, cloud costs can sometimes […]
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14 Jul 2026

Visual Studio June Update – Track Your Usage, Trust Your Tools

The June update includes a Copilot Usage window refresh with proactive alerts as you approach your limits, MCP servers now get a trust check before they run anything new.
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1 Jul 2026

Automating your Visual Studio extension builds with GitHub Actions

If you’re building and maintaining Visual Studio extensions, you’ve probably ended up with some sort of build and publishing workflow – whether it’s manual, scripted, or stitched together over time. This post is for extension authors who want a simple, repeatable way to build, version, and publish their VSIX files using GitHub Actions. I’m going […]
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29 Jun 2026

Make Visual Studio look the way you want

Themes are personal. Some of us live in dark mode, some swear by high contrast, and some of us have very strong opinions about that one shade of blue from years ago. The new themes in Visual Studio 2026 are built on Fluent, which gives us a much more consistent and accessible foundation, but we […]
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15 Jun 2026

Review pull requests without leaving Visual Studio

Pull request integration in Visual Studio has been one of the most requested Git features. Developers have been asking for a way to open a PR, inspect the changes, discuss feedback, and finish the review without switching to the browser. The feedback on that request has played a big role in shaping this experience over […]
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11 Jun 2026

What’s Coming Next in Visual Studio: Our Microsoft Build 2026 Announcements

Microsoft Build kicks off today in San Francisco, June 2 and 3. If you cannot make it in person, the sessions are streaming online for free, and I want to walk you through what we are announcing for Visual Studio this week. One idea tie most of it together. Code is an asset, not just […]
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3 Jun 2026

Visual Studio May Update – Plan, Review, Refine

There’s a particular rhythm to good development work: you think, you try, you check, you adjust. This month’s Visual Studio update leans into that rhythm. Whether you’re sketching an approach with the Plan agent before touching a single file, reviewing a wave of changes across many files, or fine-tuning the context Copilot has to work […]
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26 May 2026

Unlock language-specific rich symbol context using new find_symbol tool

Refactoring at scale is a time-consuming and error-prone process for developers. In large codebases, developers have relied on manual searches and incremental edits across multiple files to accomplish these tasks. Modern development workflows depend on fast and accurate code navigation to avoid these pitfalls. When developers refactor existing code, explore unfamiliar areas of a large […]
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11 Feb 2026

Roadmap for AI in Visual Studio (February)

After a busy January (catch up here), we’re shifting focus to reliability and refinement. This month is about tightening core workflows, improving agent stability, and building on the MCP foundations we’ve been laying. Agent Mode & Coding Agents Reliability is the priority this month. We’re raising the floor on agent-driven scenarios with: Better progress and […]
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5 Feb 2026

Performance improvements to MEF-based editor productivity extensions

If you use editor productivity extensions for Visual Studio 2026, there’s good news—they can now load faster! Extension developers with existing MEF-based editor productivity extensions should read this blog to learn about recent changes and how they might be affected. We introduced VisualStudio.Extensibility to simplify the creation of Visual Studio extensions for developers. Previously, handling threads in VSSDK-based extensions […]
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3 Feb 2026

Visual Studio January Update — Enhanced Editor Experience

Productivity Improvements This month, we are bringing you a series of small yet long requested and popular features to let you better control and customize your editor. Fast scrolling: Hold down the Alt key while scrolling the mouse wheel to move quickly when reviewing code or reading documentation. You can adjust the fast-scrolling speed in […]
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28 Jan 2026

Copilot Memories

Are you wasting time reviewing code for nits on code standards, project preferences, or important contribution guidelines? We know the pain. It’s all too easy for best practices and those tiny but critical team details to slip through the cracks, resulting in inconsistencies, confusion, and wasted time. But now, there’s a smarter way to ensure everyone’s always on the same […]
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15 Jan 2026

Welcome to 2026, A Growth Year for All of Us

I always enjoy the quiet stretch between Christmas and New Year’s. It’s one of the few moments in the year when things slow down just enough to reflect on what actually resonated. While many of us were unplugging, our digital team was doing the opposite, editing and publishing 19 sessions from VS Live! Orlando to […]
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5 Jan 2026

How AI fixed my procrastination

I struggled to get started. For ages, I kept putting off building this website, creating a new programming language for Visual Studio, and coming up with fresh color themes. Each project looked overwhelming, and I couldn’t find the time or motivation to jump in. It all just felt like too much at once. But when […]
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Artificial Intelligence

22 Dec 2025

Debugging, but Without the Drama (A Visual Studio 2026 Story)

It starts the way these things always start. A red build. A failing test. And that quiet, sinking feeling of “This worked yesterday.” Meet Sam. Sam’s not a junior, not a rockstar, just a solid developer who’s shipped enough code to know that bugs don’t care how confident you feel on Monday morning. That test failure does not offer much help […]
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16 Dec 2025

Behind the scenes of the Visual Studio feedback system

Here on the Visual Studio team, our top priority is making your coding experience smoother and more enjoyable. And that begins with truly listening to your feedback. We understand that sometimes sharing your thoughts can feel like tossing bug reports and suggestions into a black hole. It doesn’t feel good, and we get it. But […]
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15 Dec 2025

Streamlining your Git workflow with Visual Studio 2026

You’re a .NET developer with a busy morning, and an Azure DevOps ticket drops: “Login endpoint 500s under load.” You’ve got to fix it, review a teammate’s feature branch, and keep your repo clean – all before lunch. Visual Studio’s Git tools turn this everyday Git workflow of creating topic branches, stashing changes, committing, and […]
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10 Dec 2025

Unlocking the Power of Web with Copilot Chat’s New URL Context

There are many scenarios where Copilot Chat can feel limited by the built-in model training data. Maybe you want guidance on the latest web framework, documentation, or project-specific resources—but Copilot’s responses just aren’t specific enough. For developers who rely on up-to-date or esoteric answers, this gap can be a real frustration. URL Context: Bringing the web into Copilot Chat With the new URL context feature, Copilot Chat can now access […]
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4 Dec 2025

Visual Studio November Update – Visual Studio 2026, Cloud Agent Preview, and more

Visual Studio 2026 is here! If you haven’t heard the news yet, we’re excited to share with you that Visual Studio 2026 is now generally available! This new version can better assist you with several performance improvements, a redesigned user experience, and a major leap in AI-driven development. Read more about it here and get […]
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4 Dec 2025

Why changing keyboard shortcuts in Visual Studio isn’t as simple as it seems

A straight look at what’s behind the keys We’ve all tried unlearning a keyboard shortcut – it feels like forgetting how to breathe. Muscle memory doesn’t mess around. We wrestle with this every time someone suggest a “quick” shortcut change. It’s not just editing a keybinding but navigating a history that makes Visual Studio so […]
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3 Dec 2025

Profiler Agent – Delegate the analysis, not the performance

In Visual Studio 2026 we introduced Copilot Profiler Agent, a new AI-powered assistant that helps you analyze and optimize performance bottlenecks in your code. By combining the power of GitHub Copilot with Visual Studio’s performance profiler, you can now ask natural language questions about performance, get insights into hot paths, and quickly identify optimization opportunities. […]
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2 Dec 2025

Upgrade MSVC, improve C++ build performance, and refactor C++ code with GitHub Copilot

Visual Studio 2026 introduces new GitHub Copilot capabilities to support C++ developers in three development tasks: Performing large-scale C++ refactors Improving C++ build performance Upgrading Microsoft C++ (MSVC) Build Tools These experiences are available now as a Private Preview in Visual Studio 2026. Install Visual Studio 2026 and join the waitlist for Private Preview today. C++ code editing tools for GitHub […]
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2 Dec 2025

Visual Studio – Built for the Speed of Modern Development

Visual Studio will adopt the Modern Support Lifecycle as a continuously updated IDE designed to deliver innovation as soon as it is ready, while maintaining the reliability and stability you count on every day with control over your build tools choices.
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24 Nov 2025

Spend Less Time Upgrading, More Time Coding in Visual Studio 2026

In the past, moving to the next major version of Visual Studio could take hours, sometimes days, to recreate your dev environment the way you like it. Visual Studio 2026 makes it easier than ever to stay current with the latest productivity features, performance improvements, and security fixes all without disrupting your flow. With the […]
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19 Nov 2025

Azure MCP Server Now Built-In with Visual Studio 2026: A New Era for Agentic Workflows

Managing cloud resources often means juggling multiple tools, writing custom scripts, and switching contexts between your IDE and cloud management portals. These extra steps slow development and make it harder to build intelligent, secure applications efficiently. We’re excited to announce that Azure MCP Server (Model Context Protocol) tools are now generally available out-of-the-box in Visual […]
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14 Nov 2025

A first look at the all‑new UX in Visual Studio 2026

Visual Studio 2026 introduces a refreshed user experience, thoughtfully crafted for clarity, accessibility, and a clean interface that feels right at home on Windows. This update is the result of extensive collaboration with developers and incorporates valuable feedback from the community. We’ve improved typography, iconography, and the overall layout to minimize distractions and keep your […]
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13 Nov 2025

Introducing Copilot auto model selection (preview)

Faster responses, a lower chance of rate limiting, and 10% off premium requests for paid users – auto picks the best available model for each request based on current capacity and performance. With auto, you don’t need to choose a specific model. Copilot automatically selects the best one for your task. Auto model selection in […]
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Artificial Intelligence

13 Nov 2025

Visual Studio 2026 is here: faster, smarter, and a hit with early adopters

Dear developers, We’re thrilled to announce that Visual Studio 2026 is now generally available! This is a moment we’ve built side by side with you. Your feedback has helped shape this release more than any before. Since the introduction of the Insiders Channel in September, more developers have downloaded and tested this preview than any […]
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12 Nov 2025

Roadmap for AI in Visual Studio (November)

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

6 Nov 2025

Join us at .NET Conf: Dive into the future of development with Visual Studio 2026

We’re thrilled to invite you to one of the most exciting events in the .NET ecosystem: .NET Conf. It runs from November 11th through the 13th and you’re invited! This annual virtual conference is a must-attend for developers, architects, and enthusiasts looking to level up their skills and stay ahead of the curve in .NET […]
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31 Oct 2025

Visual Studio October Update – new models, memories, planning, and more

The October 2025 update for Visual Studio 2022 (v17.14) is now available. In this month, we are bringing you improvements to model choices and agentic flows. New Models We now have Claude Sonnet 4.5 and Claude Haiku 4.5 available in the chat window. This means the latest innovations for driving your agentic workflows is right at your fingertips. Memories For […]
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30 Oct 2025

Introducing Planning in Visual Studio (Public Preview)

Quick prompts are great for small fixes, but they fall short on big projects. You end up rewriting instructions, tweaking them constantly, and hoping the model stays on track. It gives Copilot a visible, structured path to follow, one that updates as it works and keeps you in control at every step. In Agent Mode, […]
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Artificial Intelligence

22 Oct 2025

Modernizing Visual Studio Extension Compatibility: Effortless Migration for Extension Developers and Users

We have great news for extension users and developers: Visual Studio 2026 is introducing an extension compatibility model designed specifically to make your life easier. Our top priority is to ensure that your extensions continue to work seamlessly across Visual Studio releases – with no extra effort required from you. For users: extensions that work […]
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21 Oct 2025

Visual Studio Dev/Test Benefit Explained

Before joining Microsoft, I served as VP of Application Development at one of the largest temporary staffing companies in the United States. I’ll never forget the look on our CFO’s face when I told him we needed two to three additional cloud environments to support a large-scale modernization project. His expression went from curious to […]
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6 Oct 2025