GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio — August update

THE NEWS

What happened

GitHub has released a major August 2026 update for Copilot within Visual Studio, introducing granular control over AI reasoning effort, custom organizational agents, and enhanced Git review capabilities. The update allows developers to balance token usage with complexity by selecting low, medium, or high thinking modes, while enterprise users can now publish and share specialized custom agents across repositories. Additionally, the new Git agent enables inline code reviews for uncommitted changes and commits before pull requests are opened, supporting both GitHub and Azure DevOps environments.

CONTEXT

Why it matters

Big news for VS Code users: GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio is getting a massive August 2026 update. You can now fine-tune AI reasoning effort, manage custom org-level agents, and use the new Git agent to review code changes inline before submitting pull requests. Works on all plans.

AT A GLANCE

Key facts

• GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio received a significant update in August 2026.
• Users can now adjust model thinking effort to Low, Medium, or High based on task complexity.
• Organization and enterprise owners can publish custom agents for cross-repository use.
• Visual Studio automatically detects custom agents and displays their descriptions in the agent picker.
• The new Git agent allows reviewing uncommitted changes and commits inline before opening pull requests.
• The management view now includes model capabilities, context window sizes, and cost information.
• Refined notifications provide clearer alerts when approaching usage limits.
• The update is available across all Copilot plans including Free, Student, Pro, Max, Business, and Enterprise.