This week, GitHub Copilot brings you a new interactive experience with chat in Visual Studio, several updates to the chat experience in Visual Studio Code, and the arrival of an expanded context window.
Stay in the flow with Interactive Code Assistant View in Visual Studio
With the Interactive Code Assistant view, you can now refine code with Copilot Chat directly within your editor window – no need to switch to a chat window! Simply use “Ask Copilot” in your code to ask questions and view inline answers. Copilot’s code suggestions appear side by side with your code, following the Visual Studio diff view pattern. This lets you review, correct, and refine suggestions at your own pace before applying changes. Throughout the process, you remain in control. To learn more about chat in Visual Studio, head to the latest blog.
Updated /slash commands, Quick Chat improvements, and expanded context in the 1.81 release of Visual Studio Code
Save time with slash command improvements
Forget deleting commands one letter at a time. With the latest update, commands now render as blocks and can be deleted with a single backspace! We’ll also automatically execute slash commands like /clear and /help when they’re selected from the suggestion list, removing the need to explicitly submit the chat request after accepting a completion.
Updated Quick Chat experience
Prefer an ephemeral chat experience instead of a panel or in-editor one? Quickly activate this view with Shift + Cmd/Ctrl + I. In this update, we’ve added conversation history and support for slash command completion to bring it closer to our other chat experiences.
Expanded context to include the terminal
Copilot chat context now extends beyond code files, taking in the active terminal’s buffer and selection to better inform its responses.
To learn more about updates to the Visual Studio Code experience, check out the full release notes.
Expanding Copilot’s context window to 8k
We’ve officially rolled out the 8k context window for all code completion requests! 🥳 With this change, Copilot has greater flexibility to include additional information as part of requests and ultimately improve the suggestions you receive!
Questions, suggestions, or ideas?
Join the conversation in the Copilot community discussion. We’d love to hear from you!