Visual Studio 2026 (18.5) April update ships cloud agent integration, user-level custom agents, C++ tools going GA, and a new Debugger Agent.
Cloud agent: offload work to a remote Copilot session
From the Chat window’s agent picker, selecting Cloud lets you hand off a task to a remote Copilot coding agent. You describe the work, the agent creates a GitHub issue in your repo, then opens a PR when done. You get a notification with “View PR” / “Open in browser” — the whole thing runs while you keep coding, or even with the IDE closed.
Custom agents now travel with you
User-level custom agents stored in %USERPROFILE%/.github/agents/ are no longer repo-scoped — they follow you across projects. The storage path is configurable under Tools > Options > GitHub > Copilot > Chat. The + button in the agent picker lets you create new agents directly. They get the same capabilities as repo-scoped agents: workspace awareness, tools, model selection, and MCP connections.
Built-in agents: Agent, Ask, Copilot CLI, Debugger, Modernize, Profiler.
C++ Code Editing Tools go GA
Two tools — get_symbol_call_hierarchy and get_symbol_class_hierarchy — are now on by default. They give Copilot language-aware navigation of C++ codebases, covering inheritance hierarchies and function call chains. Enable via the Tools icon in Copilot Chat. Works best with tool-calling models.
Debugger Agent: fixes validated against real runtime behavior
Start from a GitHub or Azure DevOps issue (or just a natural language description), switch to Debugger mode, and the agent:
- Creates a minimal reproducer
- Generates failure hypotheses
- Instruments the app with tracepoints and conditional breakpoints
- Runs an actual debug session
- Analyzes live telemetry
- Suggests a precise fix
You stay in the loop throughout — it’s interactive, not fully autonomous.
IntelliSense priority fix
VS now suppresses Copilot completions while the IntelliSense list is active. One suggestion at a time. This was a frequent friction point and it’s now on by default.
Full release notes and download at devblogs.microsoft.com.
