Visual Studio Code Makes AI Agent Sessions Easier to Manage

Visual Studio Code 1.136 is now available, with Microsoft putting much of the focus on AI agent workflows, pull requests, workspace support, and session management.

Microsoft detailed the changes in the official Visual Studio Code 1.136 release notes.

Agent Merge enters preview

One of the biggest additions is Agent Merge, a new preview feature designed to help developers complete pull requests with less manual intervention.

An agent can address review feedback, fix failed checks, resolve merge conflicts, and rerun workflows. It can repeat that process until the pull request is ready to merge.

Developers can start the feature by selecting “Enable Merge Agent for Active Session” or using the Agent Merge button.

Copilot and Claude get multi-root workspace support

Microsoft is also testing Copilot and Claude agent sessions inside the VS Code Chat view with support for multi-root workspaces.

The experimental features use the following settings:

chat.agentHost.copilotAgent.multiRootEnabled

chat.agentHost.claudeAgent.multiRootEnabled

This allows AI agents to work across projects that include multiple folders or repositories inside the same workspace.

Agent chat gets custom backgrounds

VS Code 1.136 also introduces an experimental customization option for the Agent window.

Users can apply a theme-aware background pattern created from VS Code icons or choose a custom image as the chat background.

The change does not affect agent functionality, but it gives users more control over how the Agent interface looks.

Agent sessions are easier to organize

Microsoft has also changed how related chats appear inside the Agents window.

Chats connected to the same agent session can now appear as children under their parent session in the session list.

This should make larger AI-assisted tasks easier to navigate, especially when one session produces several related conversations.

Microsoft continues to expand AI and automation features across its other products as well. The company plans to release Excel Canvas soon, while it is also turning off text predictions by default in Word and Outlook.

For IT administrators, Windows Autopatch will finally be able to pause problematic updates, giving organizations more control over update deployments.