Visual Studio Code 1.108 released
Microsoft is rolling out its planned December 2025 release of Visual Studio Code (VS Code). It brings some notable upgrades and tweaks focused on making the daily developer experience just that little bit smoother. One big addition leverages GitHub Copilot directly within VS Code through something called "Agent Skills."
This new feature lets you boost Copilot's suggestions by adding specific domain knowledge. Think of it as loading extra cheat sheets or specialized instructions into your coding workspace when needed. You load these skills on-demand from a designated folder in your file system, which is basically skill folders containing relevant scripts and guidance. It requires turning on one particular setting to get started.
Other refinements focus squarely on the Agent Sessions view itself. Managing those chat sessions with Copilot feels more organized now. You'll discover improved keyboard shortcuts for navigating them, plus session grouping so related discussions are easier to find together. There's even an option to archive multiple sessions at once instead of one by one.
The chat system also gets a look-in update. Finding previous sessions is quicker than ever, and importantly, the title stays visible even when you're not looking at the Activity Bar like usual. Additionally, VS Code now begins with a fresh start, loading an empty chat session by default upon restart, giving your access point a refreshed experience.
Terminal handling is tuned up too. Certain commands are now automatically approved unless overridden by custom rules (those optional session-based command settings). There's also a more subtle change: the terminal won't record specific commands into shell history under certain setups, potentially keeping that log tidier.
Accessibility is another area of refinement. Chat responses update in real-time directly within an accessible view mode, and it filters out non-essential output to keep things less cluttered for users relying on these tools. Plus, there's a new window title variable highlighting the active programming language, which is something helpful for automated systems or screen readers.
Beyond what we've covered about Copilot and chat sessions, other aspects of editing code get smoother too. There are new snippet transformation options built-in (like automatically converting to snake_case or kebab-case). Git operations feel more streamlined internally, and debugging tools have been better organized overall. Navigating breakpoints is also easier now, with clearer grouping by the file they came from.
The developers behind VS Code haven't just focused on refining existing features; there's added support for extensions through new API capabilities to help integrate other tools more effectively. On the internal side, a massive housecleaning of GitHub's own issue backlog has taken place, significantly clearing the decks and making project tracking much cleaner for future updates.
Lastly, Microsoft is also experimenting with letting developers build certain types of VS Code extensions directly in TypeScript. Although this is still in the testing phase and not yet ready for prime time, it indicates a continued focus on innovation in extension development within the editor itself.
Downloads
Windows: x64 Arm64Mac: Universal Intel silicon
Linux: deb rpm tarball Arm snap
The source code is available on the GitHub page below:
Release December 2025
Welcome to the December 2025 release of Visual Studio Code. Traditionally, the month of December is a time where our team focuses on cleaning up GitHub issues and pull requests across our repositories.
