Visual Studio 2022 release notes

Copilot Agent Mode is the next evolution in AI-assisted development — now available in preview in Visual Studio.

Acting as an autonomous peer programmer, Copilot Agent can handle complex, multi-step tasks at your direction. It intelligently navigates your codebase, analyzes relevant files, proposes code changes, runs terminal commands and tests, and even reacts to build and test errors. It can monitor debugging and profiling output, and iteratively self-correct until your task is complete—freeing you up to focus on what matters most.

To try it out, open the GitHub Copilot Chat window. Below the text input field, you'll see a mode selector: Manual (Chat) or Auto (Agent). Switching to Auto (Agent) transforms Copilot into a hands-on coding partner that helps accelerate your work.

Connect Visual Studio to AI agents using the new Model Context Protocol (MCP) — a standardized way to share context, access data, and drive intelligent features.

We're thrilled to introduce preview support for Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers in Visual Studio — bringing powerful new capabilities for AI-driven development! MCP is an open protocol that standardizes how apps and AI agents share context, access data, and take action, enabling more intelligent and integrated experiences.

With MCP server support in Visual Studio, you can now:

• Seamlessly connect to AI agents and services using a consistent protocol
• Build smarter tools that understand your development context
• Streamline integration of Copilot and other AI-powered assistants

This is a major step forward in making Visual Studio a fully AI-connected development environment.

Learn how to build your own MCP server in C#.

GitHub Copilot Walkthroughs are now available in Visual Studio to help you get up and running quickly. Walkthroughs guide you through using key Copilot features directly in your editor.

We're excited to introduce the GitHub Copilot Walkthrough in Visual Studio! The Walkthrough is an interactive guide built right into your editor, helping you explore GitHub Copilot's capabilities step-by-step. Whether you're new to GitHub Copilot or want to learn about its latest features, the walkthrough makes it easier than ever to get started.

Getting Started with Walkthroughs

You can launch Copilot Walkthroughs directly from Visual Studio by going to Copilot button (upper right) → GitHub Copilot Walkthroughs.

Once opened, you'll see guided activities that introduce you to different parts of the Copilot experience, such as:

• Writing prompts in Chat

• Using inline code completions

• Accepting, editing, or rejecting Copilot suggestions

• Exploring and learning about new features like Copilot Edits

The walkthrough is a great way to get a high-level understanding of what Copilot can do before diving deeper into the documentation and hands-on usage!

How to Access Walkthroughs

The GitHub Copilot walkthrough automatically opens the first time you sign into GitHub Copilot, making it super easy to get started! If you want to revisit it later, simply go to GitHub Copilot > GitHub Copilot Walkthrough in Visual Studio.

Whether you're exploring GitHub Copilot for the first time or just need a quick refresher, this walkthrough is your friendly guide to unlocking the full potential of Copilot. Dive in and start creating with confidence!

Introducing the GPT-4o Copilot code completion model to bring you higher quality completions.

We are thrilled to announce that the new GPT-4o Copilot code completion model is now available in Visual Studio 17.14 for GitHub Copilot users! This advanced model, based on GPT-4o mini, has been further trained on over 275,000 high-quality public repositories across more than 30 popular programming languages. As a result, developers can look forward to more accurate suggestions and enhanced performance.

GPT-4o Copilot access notes:

• Copilot Pro, Business, or Enterprise users: The new model is available for you now in 17.14 and later.
• Copilot Free users: Using this model will count toward your 2,000 free monthly completions.

📣 See feature ticket to share your feedback and continue the conversation.

Automatically generate doc comments for C++ and C# functions.

Copilot is now seamlessly integrated into Visual Studio's code editor to significantly boost your productivity by generating doc comments for your functions.

With automatic doc comment generation enabled for your project, you can simply type the comment pattern according to your settings configuration (e.g., ///), and Copilot will instantly complete the function description based on the function's content. This feature saves you valuable time and effort, allowing you to focus more on coding and less on documentation.

This game-changing feature is available for both C++ and C# project files, making your coding experience smoother and more efficient.

📣 See feature ticket to share your feedback and continue the conversation.

NES leverages the previous edits made and predicts the next edit to come, whether it's an insertion, deletion, or mix of both.

We are excited to announce Next Edit Suggestions, or NES for short, is now available in Visual Studio to further improve your coding experience. NES leverages the previous edits made and predicts the next edit to come, whether it's an insertion, deletion, or mix of both. Unlike Completions which is limited to generate suggestions at your caret location, NES can support you anywhere in your file, where the next edit is most likely to occur. NES augments the existing Copilot Completions experience by supporting developers' code editing activities.

Getting Started with NES

Enable NES via Tools → Options → GitHub → Copilot → Copilot Completions → Enable Next Edit Suggestions.

Like completions, all you need to do to get NES is to start coding!

When you're presented with an edit suggestion, if it is on a different line than the one you are on now, it will suggest you Tab to Navigate to the corresponding line first. You won't need to manually search for related edits anymore; NES will lead the way!

After you are on the same line as the edit, you can Tab to Accept the suggestion.

Note: You can turn on/off the hint bars by going to Tools → Options → IntelliCode → Advanced → Hide the tip shown with gray text.

In addition to the hint bars, an arrow in the gutter also pops up to indicate that there is an edit suggestion available. You can click on the arrow to explore the edit suggestion menu.

Example Scenarios

Next edit suggestions can be helpful in a variety of scenarios, not only making obvious repetitive changes but also logical changes. Here are some examples:

Refactoring a 2D Point class to 3D Point:

Updating code syntax to modern C++ using STL:

Note that NES is not just making repetitive changes like updating all printf() to std::cout, but also updating other syntax such as fgets().

Making logical changes in response to a newly added variable:

NES responds quickly to the new variable, which adds a maximum number of guesses a player can make in a game, and Copilot Completions also jumps in to help.

You can now let Copilot adjust your pasted code to fit the context of your existing code.

When you're pasting code into Visual Studio, there are often additional steps required to make it work seamlessly. Parameters may need to be adjusted to match those already used in your solution, or the syntax and styling may not align with the rest of your document.

Adaptive paste is here to save you time and reduce effort by automatically adjusting the pasted code to fit the context of your existing code, minimizing the need for manual modifications. This feature also supports scenarios such as minor error fixes, code styling, formatting, human and code language translation, and fill-in-the-blank or continue-the-pattern tasks.

For instance, if you have a Math class that implements the IMath interface, copying and pasting the implementation for the Ceiling method into the same file will adapt it to implement the not yet implemented interface member Floor.

The adaptive paste UI will appear when you perform a regular paste {KeyboardShortcut:Edit.Paste}. Simply press the TAB key to request a suggestion, and you'll be shown a diff comparing the original pasted code with the adjusted code.

Try it out today by enabling the option Tools → Options → GitHub → Copilot → Editor → Enable Adaptive Paste.

You can now let Copilot fully implement your empty C# method.

Today, if you're referencing a method in your C# code that hasn't been implemented yet, you can use a common lightbulb refactoring called Generate Method to immediately create that method in a class. However, this refactoring only creates a method with the correct signature but an empty skeleton and throw new NotImplementedException line otherwise. This means that while the method technically exists and you have to do less work to create it, you'll still need to implement the method yourself, which can take more time.

The Implement with Copilot refactoring aims to make you even more productive in this scenario by allowing you to automatically implement or add the meat to your method with the help of GitHub Copilot. When an empty method only containing a NotImplementedException throw is encountered, you can select the lightbulb (CTRL+.) on that throw line and select the Implement with Copilot refactoring and Copilot will fill out all the contents of your method based on your existing codebase, method name, etc.

New Mono debug engine for .NET MAUI integrated into the Visual Studio Core debugger.

The new Mono debugger for .NET MAUI apps is an advanced debug engine integrated into the Visual Studio debugger. It offers significant improvements in reliability, performance, and feature parity with the rest of Visual Studio.

Notable enhancements include Just My Code, variables, and expression evaluation.

To use this feature, ensure you have enabled the following Visual Studio Preview option: Enable new .NET Mono debugger for MAUI apps.

Currently, this feature is only available for the Android platform. iOS support is coming soon.

Enhanced LINQ expression debugging experience with clause hovering datatip.

Generating and troubleshooting LINQ queries can be a tedious and intricate process, often requiring precise syntax knowledge and numerous iterations. To alleviate these challenges, Visual Studio 2022 now features a LINQ on-hover DataTip in its debugger.

While you are in a break state during debugging, you can hover over individual clauses or segments of your LINQ query to evaluate the immediate query value at runtime.

Additionally, you can click the GitHub Copilot icon at the end of the DataTip to perform an Analyze with Copilot on the specific query clause you hovered over. Copilot will then explain the clause's syntax and clarify why you are getting the specified result.

This feature can significantly improve efficiency and make your debugging experience smoother and easier, helping you pinpoint issues with LINQ queries faster and streamline your overall development workflow.

📣 See feature ticket to share your feedback and continue the conversation.

The .NET Allocation Tool now identifies zero-length array allocations, helping optimize memory usage and performance.

The .NET Allocation Tool now provides detailed insights into zero-length array allocations, helping you identify and optimize unnecessary memory usage. While these allocations may seem insignificant individually, they can accumulate quickly and impact performance, especially in high-performance or memory-constrained applications.

With this update, you can investigate zero-length array allocations by clicking the Investigate link, which opens the Allocation View displaying allocation details. Double-clicking reveals code paths where these allocations occur, enabling precise optimizations. To improve efficiency, consider using Array.Empty<T>(), a statically allocated empty array instance, to eliminate redundant memory allocations.

The Git Repository window now provides a filter at its toolbar to show only outgoing / incoming commits.

The Git Repository window is your go-to place to understand your Git history. As you work on a local branch, it may get out of sync with your remote, either because you created new commits (outgoing) or there are new commits to pull (incoming).

With the new outgoing/incoming filter available in the toolbar, you can instantly spot these unsynced commits. Your commits, their commits – scan them with ease and stay perfectly in sync!

📣 See feature ticket to share your feedback and continue the conversation.

Keep the Git Repository window open between restarts with this new setting.

As your dedicated environment for branch operations, the Git Repository window is likely at the core of your day-to-day development. If you find yourself frequently reopening it with every Visual Studio session, this update is designed to save you time and effort.

We've added a new setting to Git > Settings that automatically restores the Git Repository window when restarting Visual Studio. Additionally, the window will be included in your saved window layouts, enhancing your customization options.

By default, this feature is off to keep things running smoothly for those who don't need it. But if you like the convenience, this setting is perfect for you.

📣 See feature ticket to share your feedback and continue the conversation.

Allow users to customize the initial default branch when a new git repository is created.

You can now set the default branch name for new Git repositories directly through Visual Studio. This new setting integrates smoothly with your Git configuration, making it easier to tailor your workflow to your preferences.

Simply navigate to Git > Settings, and the next time you create a repository, you will see your custom branch name in action.

📣 See feature ticket to share your feedback and continue the conversation.

NuGet now provides context when asking you to provide credentials.

We've improved the NuGet authentication process. If we detect any potential authentication issues, you'll now see a new authentication dialog that provides context about the feed and the specific account needs.

This update enhances the reauthentication process for multi-factor authentication (MFA) scenarios, resolves issues with consecutive authentication prompts, and ensures a smoother overall experience when managing private NuGet feeds.

Teams Toolkit 17.14 GA updates.

Product Update: Teams Toolkit Rename to Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit

We are excited to announce that our product, previously known as Teams Toolkit, is being renamed to Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit. This change reflects our expanded focus and commitment to support a broader range of platforms and project types within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

As we continue to enhance our product, we are shifting our focus from solely supporting Teams development to empowering developers to create Microsoft 365 Copilot agents and other applications across the Microsoft 365 platform. These platforms include Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft Teams, Office family and Outlook. This expansion in scope allows us to better serve our users by providing comprehensive tools, templates and resources for developing a wide variety of Microsoft 365 solutions.

The new name, Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit, better represents the diverse functionalities and capabilities of our product. We believe this change will help our users more easily identify the full range of development opportunities available within the Microsoft 365 environment.

Thank you for your continued support as we evolve to meet the growing needs of our developer community.

Create declarative agent

We're excited to announce that in this release we added project templates for building Declarative Agents for Microsoft 365 Copilot.

You can create a Declarative Agent with or without an action. You can choose to define new APIs or utilize existing ones to perform tasks or retrieve data.

Use Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit to debug and preview your Declarative Agents in Microsoft Copilot.

Enable smooth one-click debug

In previous versions of Teams Toolkit, which is now called Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit, when users debugged any solution generated, you needed to use the command Prepare Teams app dependency before debugging the project. This command triggered the toolkit to help developers create essential resources for debugging, such as registering or updating the Teams app.

To enhance the debugging experience and make it more intuitive for Visual Studio users, we have removed this step and enabled one-click debugging experience. Now, you can directly click the debug button without any preparation steps. However, if you have made edits to your app manifest between two debug events and need to update your app, there remains an option to do that. We offer two debug profiles:

• Debug with updating app: Select the default profile [Your Target Launch Platform] (browser) if you have made edits to your app to ensure the updates are applied.
• Debug without updating app: Choose the second profile [Your Target Launch Platform] (browser) (skip update app) to skip updating the app resources, making debugging lighter and quicker.

Upgrade to .NET 9

Additionally, in this release, we have refreshed all project templates to support .NET 9.

Happy coding!
The Microsoft 365 Agents Toolkit Team

Changing themes will now preserve your font and font size preferences.

We understand that the fonts developers select when coding is a personal choice, influenced by preferences for readability, accessibility, or aesthetics. Visual Studio themes primarily focus on presentation colors and are independent of your preferred fonts.

With this update, we've introduced functionality to retain your font face and size choices when switching themes. You can now set your font preferences once and switch themes in Visual Studio without needing to reconfigure your font settings every time. Note that the colors of your fonts remain linked to the theme, as that is the purpose of themes, but your font selections will be preserved.

📣 See feature ticket to share your feedback and continue the conversation.

Discover your favorite Windows Forms (WinForms) controls present in the Explicit Assembly References automatically added to the Toolbox for .NET Framework projects using the WinForms out-of-process designer.

WinForms out-of-process Designer for .NET Framework projects now supports an enhanced experience by automatically discovering and displaying controls present in standalone assembly references, also known as Explicit Assembly References.

This feature greatly enriches the design time experience for .NET Framework projects referencing legacy 32-bit assemblies. Users can leverage improved tool configurations tailored for better integration with modern development workflows and enhanced productivity. For more details, please read our blog post.

Live Preview, Hot Reload, and other UI tools are now available at design time.

Live Preview is now available at design time, allowing you to see changes in your app UI in real-time. You can also use Hot Reload and other live UI tools in this way, ensuring a seamless workflow.

These tools can be used even when detached from the debugger, allowing for uninterrupted experimentation and refinement of your designs.

Click on the new Live Preview indicator to access Live Preview at design time from any XAML file:

Whether you're working on a new .NET MAUI app or refining an existing WPF app, these enhancements will help you deliver high-quality applications faster and with greater confidence.

📣 See feature ticket to share your feedback and continue the conversation.

Visual Studio now includes an updated UWP MSTest project template targeting .NET 9 and Native AOT.

Visual Studio now includes a new UWP MSTest project template targeting .NET 9 and Native AOT. We worked closely with the MSTest team to add all necessary support for UWP .NET 9 projects to the MSTest libraries, infrastructure, and the Visual Studio test host. This enables UWP test projects to target .NET 9 and leverage all the modern .NET SDK and MSTest tooling while still running in a UWP context as you'd expect.

The previous UWP MSTest project template using .NET Native will still be available. However, we recommend using the new project templates targeting .NET 9 and Native AOT going forward. As in Visual Studio 17.13, we have adjusted the ordering of all UWP templates to prioritize the new .NET 9 project templates in the search results.

📣 See feature ticket to share your feedback and continue the conversation.

The installer can now handle the installation of extension packs.

The installer now supports Extension Packs, which are bundles of multiple extensions referenced from a single extension.

To use Extension Packs in the Installer, first specify the desired extensions in a .vsconfig file. Then, use the Visual Studio Installer's Import Configuration feature to import the .vsconfig file containing your extension details.

For more information on creating or generating .vsconfig files, refer to the installation configurations documentation.

After importing the .vsconfig file, you'll be directed to the modify screen where extensions will be grouped under their own heading in the installation summary pane. Here, you can select or deselect entire Extension Packs or individual extensions within any Packs.

VSIX projects with one or more project references now use intelligent incremental builds, drastically improving F5 scenarios and developer productivity.

If you're developing Visual Studio extensions with multiple projects, you'll love this performance enhancement! VSIX projects with one or more project references will now only build projects that actually need rebuilding, making your development workflow significantly faster.

How it works

The Fast Up-to-Date Check system has been improved to be smarter about determining which projects in your solution need rebuilding:

• If you modify Project A which depends on Projects B and C, only Project A will be rebuilt
• If you modify Project B, only Projects A and B will be rebuilt
• This intelligence extends throughout your entire project dependency tree

Real-world impact

The performance improvements are substantial in real-world scenarios. For example, the GitHub Copilot extension that ships with Visual Studio (with approximately 30 projects) saw build time improvements of over 50% for incremental changes - reducing build times from around 60 seconds to just 24 seconds!

This enhancement is particularly beneficial for:

• Large VSIX projects with multiple dependencies
• Rapid iteration development workflows
• Frequent F5 debugging sessions

Note that if your solution contains only a single project, you won't see any performance benefits from this enhancement.

Note: This only applies to SDK-Style VSIX projects.

Your extension development just got a whole lot faster - happy coding!

There are several new improvements to the Extension Manager in Visual Studio that will make it easier to manage your extensions.

We're excited to introduce a set of powerful new features in Visual Studio that streamline your workflow and improve the extension management experience. These updates ensure that you stay up to date effortlessly while giving you more control over how and when updates are applied.

What's New?

Seamless auto updates

Visual Studio will now automatically trigger updates when you open the application, ensuring you always have the latest features and fixes without manual intervention.

Restart gold bar for applied updates

When updates are applied, a gold bar notification will appear, prompting you to restart Visual Studio for the changes to take effect.

Auto update settings in extension page

We've made auto update settings more accessible by integrating them directly into the extension page, giving you quick access to configuration options.

Filter by pending changes

A new Pending category now highlights pending changes, keeping you informed about updates and modifications that require attention.

Auto update settings

In addition to the extension page, auto update settings are now available under Tools → Options, allowing for a more intuitive settings management experience.

Simplified settings experience

We've streamlined the settings UI, making it easier to configure auto updates and other related preferences with fewer clicks and clearer options.

Excluded extensions list

Visual Studio now features an Excluded extensions list that auto-populates, helping you manage extensions that should not be updated automatically. This is particularly useful for mission-critical extensions where you prefer to control version updates manually.

These enhancements are designed to improve usability, reduce update friction, and give you greater control over your development environment while ensuring you benefit from the latest improvements.

📣 See feature ticket to share your feedback and continue the conversation.

You can now use the SDK-style project file format in your SQL Server Data Tools projects with enhanced SQL debugging and schema comparison capabilities.

The update in Visual Studio 17.14 introduces new item templates and .dacpac database references to SDK-style SQL Server Data Tools (preview). SDK-style SSDT SQL projects are based on the Microsoft.Build.Sql SDK, which provides cross-platform support and improved CI/CD capabilities for SQL Server Data Tools (SSDT) projects.

With less verbose project files and database references to NuGet packages, teams can collaborate more efficiently on large databases within a single project or compile multiple sets of objects from several projects. Database deployments from a Microsoft.Build.Sql project can be automated in both Windows and Linux environments using the Microsoft.SqlPackage dotnet tool to publish the build artifact (.dacpac) from the SQL project. Learn more about SDK-style SQL projects and DevOps for SQL.

In 17.14, database references have been expanded to support project and .dacpac artifact references. Support for database references as package references will be available in a future release. A recent update to the slngen solution file generator also added support for Microsoft.Build.Sql projects, enabling the management of large solutions programmatically.

To use SDK-style SQL projects in your solution, make sure to install the latest SSDT preview component in the Visual Studio installer.

📣 See feature ticket to share your feedback and continue the conversation.

Added support for CMake modules in IntelliSense Quick Info and completions.

We are thrilled to announce that we have added support for IntelliSense-based completions and quick info for CMake modules in Visual Studio. Now, you can view all available CMake modules and learn more about them directly from the Visual Studio editor, making your development process smoother and more efficient.

Quick Info

When you hover over a referenced CMake module, IntelliSense provides detailed information about the selected module, helping you understand its usage and functionality at a glance.

Completion

When you start typing a CMake module in your CMakeLists.txt or other CMake script files, IntelliSense will provide a list of available modules to choose from.

Full debuggability for your optimized C++ code without compromising on performance.

Debugging optimized code is now easier than ever. By activating C++ Dynamic Debugging, you can debug your optimized code as if it were unoptimized. You can view all your local variables, step in anywhere, and set full-fidelity breakpoints on your optimized binaries. For more details, please read our blog post.

Template IntelliSense now automatically populates template arguments by using Go To Definition (F12).

You can now automatically populate template arguments in the template bar, which displays and allows editing of template parameters, when using Go To Definition or F12.

For example, pressing F12 on vector will now jump to vector with the template bar automatically populated, allowing developers to quickly inspect and modify template parameters.

In the example below, using Go To Definition or pressing F12 will populate both the type and allocator in the template bar.

Configuring include completion allows you to control which headers appear in the include completion list.

You can now control which headers appear in the include completion list when you type #include.

The dropdown setting in Tools → Options → Text Editor → C/C++ → IntelliSense → Include style for suggestions now affects both include suggestions and include completion, with the following refined behaviors:

• Core Guidelines (Default): Uses quotes for relative paths and angle brackets for everything else.
• Quotes mode: Uses quotes for all headers except standard headers, which use angle brackets.
• Angle brackets mode: Uses angle brackets for all headers that are part of the include path.

Previously, all headers (except relative ones) appeared in suggestions regardless of the syntax used. With this update, you can refine how header suggestions appear when using #include <> and #include "".

📣 See feature ticket to share your feedback and continue the conversation.