Visual Studio Insiders release notes

Hot Exit preserves unsaved files & saved files with unsaved changes, so you can pick up exactly where you left off.

When you close Visual Studio, Hot Exit saves your session state. The next time you open Visual Studio, it restores your open documents, edits, and unsaved changes automatically, so you don't need to save manually.

Hot Exit is off by default. To turn it on, go to Tools → Options → Preview Features → Hot Exit.

Hot Exit preserves:

• Unsaved files.
• Saved files with unsaved changes.
• Undo functionality for saved files, including Ctrl+Z.
• Your tab and window layout.

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

Explore pull requests in chat and navigate directly to comments and files.

Reviewing a pull request often means piecing together the discussion, the changed files, and what actually matters before you can dig in. The Git agent can now do that legwork for you.

Open Copilot Chat, select the Git agent, and ask it about your pull request, attaching the PR as context from the Git Repository window.

The response includes navigable links that open the corresponding comments and files directly in the pull request view in the IDE. Ask follow-up questions any time you want the agent to go deeper.

Connect your Git provider's MCP servers so Copilot can get more context about your PRs. GitHub and Azure DevOps are both supported.

Use AI in Visual Studio with the models your team prefers - through GitHub Copilot or your own model deployments, signed in to GitHub or not.

The best AI in Visual Studio is the AI you can bring with you. With Bring Your Own Key (BYOK), more developers can use AI in Visual Studio with the models their teams prefer - whether through GitHub Copilot or their own model deployments. From individual developers experimenting with new models to organizations standardizing on approved deployments, BYOK lets you use AI your way, whether or not you're signed in to GitHub.

BYOK is available in preview and enabled by default across the Community, Professional, and Enterprise SKUs. Connect to a Microsoft Foundry deployment or use a key from another supported provider, then work in Agent Mode with the new Agent (Preview).

This is an early preview, and we want your feedback. Not every model supports every Agent Mode capability yet. When a feature isn't supported, Visual Studio marks it clearly instead of failing silently. Try it and tell us what's working and where we should invest next in the Developer Community forum or fill out this short survey.

To get started:

1. Open Chat.
2. Open the model picker and choose Add a model or Manage Models.
3. Connect to your provider.
4. Start working in Agent Mode.

Supported providers: Microsoft Foundry, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Ollama. Custom endpoint support for OpenAI and Ollama is coming soon.

Note: BYOK now works with the new Agent (Preview), which is built on the GitHub Copilot SDK-powered harness. The earlier BYOK experience in the previous Ask and Agent modes is no longer supported. Install the latest Visual Studio Insiders release (18.10) and use the new Agent (Preview) to try it.

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

Attach the Visual Studio debugger to processes inside Podman containers, just like Docker.

Starting in Visual Studio 18.10, container discovery recognizes Podman alongside Docker.

Start a container, then go to Debug → Attach to Process. Set Connection type to Podman, then click Find. Your Podman containers appear automatically, with the same attach experience you already use for Docker.

You can debug both .NET and C++ containers with no extra configuration.