AI is changing software development at a pace no one can ignore. Developers now have powerful AI tools that can help us write code, understand unfamiliar codebases, troubleshoot problems, learn new frameworks, and get answers in seconds. That is an incredible opportunity. But as these tools become more capable, I believe something else is becoming more valuable […] The post AI Is Changing How We C…
Today I want to look at how we can improve on the test coverage that we have in the Interview Coach application. This application has some unit tests in it already, but I’m sure there is room for improvement. Defining our baseline Before we start writing tests, it’s a good idea to have a baseline […] The post Today I will… improve test coverage appeared first on Visual Studio Blog.
When a distributed application feels slow, the user sees one delay. The code behind that delay may run across a web frontend, backend services, databases, and external APIs. If you profile only the frontend while the backend is slow, the profiler can show that the frontend is healthy without revealing the actual bottleneck. This article […] The post Today I will… find hidden latency across a distr…
A user asked for per-solution color themes. It already ships, and it goes further than they asked. You run several instances of Visual Studio side by side, one per solution, and they all look identical. Same taskbar icon, same alt-tab thumbnail, same chrome. So, you land in the wrong one, start typing, and realize thirty […] The post Stop alt-tabbing into the wrong Visual Studio appeared first on…
Today I will show you how we can tackle one of the most common tasks when working in a development team or managing an open-source project, and that is working with Pull Requests. While we’re going to be using the GitHub tooling within Visual Studio for this, the approach would be very similar with Azure […] The post Today I will… review GitHub PRs appeared first on Visual Studio Blog.
VSLive! @ Microsoft HQ 2026 was one of the most energizing VSLive! events I’ve attended. What stood out was the level of engagement over five days of learning and conversation from July 27 through July 31. Developers came ready to dig into the future of Visual Studio, .NET, and AI-assisted software development, and many Microsoft engineers and product managers were there to have those conversation…
A few months ago, we introduced a new guided agentic workflow in the Visual Studio Debugger Agent designed to help you move from a bug report to a verified fix without spending your morning guessing where to begin. If you missed that announcement, check out Stop Hunting Bugs: Meet the New Visual Studio Debugger Agent […] The post The Visual Studio Debugger Agentic Workflow Gets a Test-Driven Upgra…
Tune Copilot model thinking effort, share custom agents across your organization, track usage, and simplify complex Git workflows with worktrees and submodule support. The post Visual Studio August Update – Work Smarter Across Models and Branches appeared first on Visual Studio Blog.
The best AI in Visual Studio is the AI you can bring with you. Developers don’t work in a single-model world anymore. You might reach for one model for everyday coding, another for a domain-specific problem, and an approved model for work that must stay within your organization’s governance boundaries. So, the question we hear […] The post Unlocking the Power of AI for Every Developer in Visual St…
Today I will modernize a .NET Framework application to .NET 10 using the GitHub Copilot modernization tooling built-in to Visual Studio. The tooling helps us upgrade applications running on legacy versions of .NET and also migrate them to Azure. Today we’re going to focus on the upgrade portion. And, the tooling will do […] The post Today I will… Modernize a .NET application appeared first on Visu…
If you’ve worked with Git submodules for any length of time, you probably have a love-hate relationship with them. They’re genuinely useful for pulling a shared library, an SDK, or common build scripts into your project. But actually working with them usually means tabbing over to a terminal and trying to remember whether it’s git […] The post Today I will… manage Git Submodules without leaving th…
If you’ve been looking for a practical way to build Azure skills, Cloud Academy (a QA company) gives Visual Studio subscribers hands-on learning that fits into busy schedules. Whether you’re new to Azure, expanding your cloud expertise, working towards certifications or preparing for more advanced projects, this benefit helps you learn by doing. What you’ll find in Cloud Academy The Cloud Academy…
Not every question deserves the same amount of thought. Renaming a variable isn’t the same as debugging a memory leak, and they don’t need the same level of thinking. So why should your model treat them the same way every time? Starting in Visual Studio 18.9 Insiders 2, it doesn’t have to. Supported models now come with a thinking […] The post Tell your model when to think harder appeared first on…
There's a new Agent (Preview) in Copilot Chat, built on the same GitHub Copilot SDK that powers the GitHub Copilot CLI, that gets more done with less back-and-forth. The post Visual Studio July Update — Meet the New Agent, Powered by the GitHub Copilot SDK appeared first on Visual Studio Blog.
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…
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 […] The post Pick, manage, and get the most from your models appeared first on Visu…
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 […] The post Built-in Agent Skills Bri…
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 d…
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. The post Visual Studio June Update – Track Your Usage, Trust Your Tools appeared first on Visual Studio Blog.
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 […] The post Automating your Visual Studio extension…
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 […] The post Make Visual Studio look the way you want appeared first on Visual Studio Blog.
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 […] The post Review pull requests without leaving Visual Studio appeared first…
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 […] The post What’s Coming Next in Visual Studio: Our Microsoft Build 2026 Announcements appeared first on Visual S…
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 […] The post Visual Studio May Update – Plan, Review, Refine ap…
You ask Copilot to tackle something big, it gets to work, and a dozen file changes later you realize you had a completely different approach in mind. The code isn’t wrong… it just isn’t what you were going for. Last year, we introduced planning as a feature in Agent mode to help with exactly this. […] The post Plan Before You Build: Introducing the Plan agent in Visual Studio appeared first on Vis…
If you lead a development team, you already know the pattern. You approve the travel, your developers attend a great conference, they come back energized, and then the work resumes exactly as it was. The ideas don’t survive contact with the backlog. This July at VSLive! @ Microsoft HQ in Redmond, we’re trying to change […] The post VSLive! Microsoft AI Hackathon 2026: Send Your Team Home With Work…
Visual Studio now supports Agent Skills, which are reusable instruction sets that teach Copilot agents how to handle specific tasks like running a build pipeline, generating boilerplate, or following your team’s coding standards. Define a skill once, and the agent applies it automatically whenever it’s relevant. Creating a skill You can create a skill directly […] The post Agent Skills in Visual S…
TypeScript 7 Beta Now Enabled by Default in Visual Studio 2026 18.6 Insiders 3 In Visual Studio 2026 18.6 Insiders 3 we have updated the built-in TypeScript SDK to TypeScript 7 Beta (native preview). The TypeScript SDK provides the compiler and language service used for TypeScript and JavaScript support in Visual Studio. This update impacts any […] The post TypeScript 7 Beta Now Enabled by Default…