VS Code: Chat Gets Supercharged

Transcript

Hey there, fellow developers! Welcome back to another episode of the VS Code podcast. I'm your host, and wow - do we have an exciting day to talk about! March 12th, 2026 was absolutely packed with innovation, and I can barely contain my enthusiasm about what the team shipped.

Let's dive right into the headline feature that's got me genuinely excited - rebornix just delivered something spectacular with the new image carousel! This isn't just a simple image viewer, folks. We're talking about a full modal editor pane that displays images from MCP tool results in a beautiful carousel view with smooth navigation controls. The implementation touches thirteen files and adds over 746 lines of thoughtful code. If you've ever struggled with viewing multiple images from your chat interactions, this is going to be a game-changer.

But that's not all on the chat front! Connor Peet has been absolutely crushing it with plugin support. Two massive pull requests landed that completely transform how we work with plugins. First, VS Code now supports the OpenPlugin format - basically expanding the ecosystem to work with existing plugin standards. Then, in an even bigger move, there's now support for plugin-specific paths and the ability to add plugins directly without needing a full repository. You can literally use 'Chat: Install Plugin from Source' right from the command palette. This opens up so many possibilities for custom tooling and workflows.

Martin Aeschlimann tackled something that's been a real pain point for teams working with monorepos. You know how frustrating it was when you'd open a subfolder in VS Code and lose access to your chat customizations because they were defined at the parent repository level? Well, that's history now! There's a new setting called `chat.useCustomizationsInParentRepositories` that walks up the directory tree to find your prompts, agents, and skills. It's disabled by default for now, but this is exactly the kind of thoughtful feature that makes VS Code feel like it truly gets how we actually work.

Speaking of workflow improvements, Justin Chen added some delightful quality-of-life updates to chat. We've got new slash commands - `/yolo` switches to bypass mode and `/autopilot` switches to autopilot mode. I love how these little touches make the interface feel more conversational and intuitive. Plus, there were several fixes to ensure the "working" progress indicator shows up consistently, which might seem small but makes such a difference in user experience.

Johannes Rieken enhanced inline chat with continue and rephrase actions, giving you more control over your editing sessions. And there's even better session management now, which means your inline chat interactions will feel more polished and responsive.

I've got to give a shoutout to some of the other contributors making VS Code better in smaller but meaningful ways. Deepak added macOS 26 icon support, keeping VS Code looking crisp on the latest systems. There was a nice fix for terminal creation on web worker extension hosts, and even a thoughtful telemetry improvement that preserves node_modules paths while still protecting user privacy. These kinds of details show the maturity and care that goes into every release.

Oh, and Matt Bierner finally, definitively removed webpack - again! Sometimes persistence pays off, and it sounds like the infrastructure is finally ready for this change to stick.

For today's focus, I'd encourage you to explore these chat enhancements if you haven't already. Try out the new image carousel next time you're working with visual content in chat. If you're in a monorepo setup, definitely experiment with that parent repository customization setting. And plugin developers - this is your moment! The expanded plugin support opens up so many opportunities to build amazing tools for the VS Code ecosystem.

That's a wrap on today's episode! Twenty merged pull requests and thirty additional commits - the VS Code team is firing on all cylinders. Until next time, keep coding, keep experimenting, and remember - every commit is a step forward in your development journey. Catch you soon!