Visual Studio Code 1.109: Why the New Agent Features Actually Matter
Visual Studio Code 1.109 rolls out with a whole lot of AI‑driven polish that finally feels useful instead of just “shiny”. In this article you’ll learn which parts of the update will speed up your daily grind, where the hype falls flat, and how to get the most out of the new agent workflow without turning your editor into a sandbox for every experiment.
Chat UX – streaming that actually streams
The old chat window would freeze until the model spat out a whole answer. Now you see each token appear as it’s generated, so you can interrupt or steer the conversation mid‑sentence. Why it matters: no more staring at a black box waiting for an answer that may never come. If you’re used to killing the chat tab when it stalls, you’ll notice the difference immediately.
Agent Session Management – keep tabs on background work
You can now spin up agents in three flavors: local, background, and cloud. The biggest win is the ability to “jump in” when an agent hits a roadblock—just hit the “Take Control” button and you’re editing where it left off.
If you’ve ever had a stray task running somewhere in VS Code’s Process Explorer with no clue what it was doing, this UI cleanup feels like a breath of fresh air.
Agent Customization – build your own workflow
The new orchestration editor lets you chain agents together without writing JSON by hand. Drag a “Search‑Docs” node into the canvas, link it to a “Refactor Code” node, and hit Run. The result is a reproducible pipeline that can be saved as a workspace setting.
The only downside? The editor is a bit heavy for simple one‑off tasks; if you just need a quick grep, firing up the whole canvas feels overkill. For those cases, stick to the plain command palette.
Agent Extensibility – Claude and Anthropic on board
If you’ve been living in the Copilot‑only world, you’ll appreciate that VS Code now ships with built‑in support for Claude agents and newer Anthropic models. Switching between them is as easy as picking a dropdown at the top of the chat pane.
Just remember: each model has its quirks, so you might need to tweak prompts when moving between them.
Agent Optimizations – faster code search
External indexing now powers the “search‑project” skill. Instead of scanning every file on demand, VS Code builds a lightweight index in the background and queries it instantly. My first test on a 2 GB monorepo returned results in under a second—something that used to take half a minute with the old grep‑based approach.
If you’re paranoid about disk usage, note that the index lives in the .vscode folder and can be cleared from Settings → Extensions → Agent Indexing.
Agent Security & Trust – sandboxed terminal commands
Running AI‑generated shell commands has always felt like handing a stranger your keys. The new sandbox isolates those commands, letting you set auto‑approval rules per workspace.
The trade‑off is a tiny delay before execution, but peace of mind beats surprise package installs every time.
Workbench & Productivity – integrated browser
VS Code finally bundles a Chromium‑based preview pane. You can spin up a local dev server and hit “Open in Browser” without leaving the editor. It’s handy for quick UI checks, but if you rely on extensions like Live Server that already open an external tab, this feels redundant. For me, it’s most useful when I’m testing OAuth redirects that need to stay within the same window.
Terminal Enhancements – smoother experience
The terminal now remembers its scroll position after a crash and restores the last working directory automatically. A subtle change, but after a few accidental restarts, it saves you from re‑navigating dozens of folder levels.
Coding & Editor – everyday polish
- Auto‑import suggestions are now filtered by project’s tsconfig paths, so you stop getting imports that resolve to node_modules when you meant an alias.
- The minimap respects folded sections better; it no longer shows collapsed code as a solid block.
These aren’t headline features, but they shave seconds off the daily routine.
Extensions & API – more room for creativity
The extension host now exposes the new agent orchestration objects, meaning third‑party tools can offer their own custom agents.
That’s the meat of VS Code 1.109. The AI upgrades feel less like a gimmick and more like a practical assistant—provided you keep an eye on sandbox settings and don’t force every tiny task through the new canvas. Give it a spin, break a few things, and let the editor show you where the real productivity gains hide.
Downloads
Linux:
deb rpm tarball Arm snap
Release VSCode January 2026
Welcome to the January 2026 release of Visual Studio Code. In this release, we are further evolving VS Code to make it the home for multi-agent development.
