Visual Studio Enhances Visual Studio with Built-In and Custom AI Agents

Visual Studio now includes a suite of built-in AI agents tailored to core developer tasks such as debugging, profiling, testing, and modernisation directly within the IDE. In addition, Microsoft is launching a preview framework that lets teams build their own custom agents — connected to internal knowledge sources — for workflow-specific automation and insights.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Built-in agents

  Preset agents support debugging, profiling, testing, and modernisation—using your solution’s call stacks, diagnostics, and project context to deliver insights grounded in your actual codebase, not generic advice.

• Bring your own: Custom agents (Preview)

  Custom agents let you build tailored experiences using the same powerful foundation—workspace awareness, deep code understanding, tool access, and your preferred model. You can also connect them to internal documentation, design systems, APIs, and databases so they go beyond what’s in your repo.

• Get started

  Create a .agent.md file inside your repository’s /GitHub/agents/ folder to define a custom agent. This feature is in preview, and if no model is specified, the agent uses the one selected in the model picker.

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