Microsoft has officially launched version 17.14 of Visual Studio 2022, introducing a powerful new preview feature: GitHub Copilot’s agent mode. This update, released on May 13, is now available for download on visualstudio.microsoft.com.
With the debut of agent mode, developers can now issue natural language commands to Visual Studio, enabling the IDE to carry out complex, multi-step coding workflows. The AI assistant can understand the entire codebase, troubleshoot issues, apply code modifications, and even run terminal commands — all as part of an ongoing, interactive session with the developer. Microsoft describes this as a major leap in autonomous software development and notes that the feature is open to all users in public preview.
Smarter Coding Through AI: More Than Just Suggestions
Beyond the new agent capabilities, version 17.14 expands Visual Studio’s AI-assisted toolset. GitHub Copilot now offers Next Edit Suggestions (NES) — a feature that predicts likely changes to a file based on past editing patterns. Additionally, automatic documentation generation for C++ and C# functions is now powered by AI, streamlining the creation of code comments.
Another notable technical enhancement in this release is support for the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Developed by Anthropic and currently in preview, MCP allows Copilot agents to access external data, tools, and contextual resources in a structured way, enhancing the assistant’s ability to execute sophisticated tasks accurately.
Developer Productivity Boosted Across the Board
Visual Studio 17.14 doesn’t stop at AI enhancements. Microsoft has also delivered a host of productivity and debugging improvements:
- Live Preview now lets developers see UI updates in real time during design, making UI iteration more efficient.
- Hot Reload and other live development tools can now be used seamlessly in this live environment.
- .NET MAUI developers gain a Mono debug engine, integrated into Visual Studio’s core debugger.
- C++ developers benefit from a preview of dynamic debugging, which enables full inspection of optimized C++ builds with no performance loss.
- Language support for C++23 has been expanded with new capabilities like lambda attributes,
if consteval, and static operators.
IntelliSense and code generation for C++ projects have also been refined, particularly for users working with CMake.
Version Control Gets Smarter, Too
Git integration in the latest version has seen thoughtful updates as well. Developers can now:
- Set a default branch name for new repositories.
- Maintain an open repository session across restarts.
- Use new filters in the Git Repository window to display only outgoing or incoming commits.
