VS Code: The Chat Intelligence Revolution - AI Gets Smarter with Slash Commands and Background Agents
VS Code's AI capabilities just got a massive upgrade with 20 merged PRs focusing heavily on chat intelligence improvements. The team shipped new slash commands like /models and /tools, enhanced background agent support for prompt files, and improved the overall AI interaction experience. Notable contributions from Rob Lourens, Don Jayamanne, and Matt Bierner are driving VS Code's evolution into a more intelligent development environment.
Duration: PT4M3S
Episode overview
This episode is a short developer briefing from VS Code.
It explains recent repository work in plain language.
- Show: VS Code
- Published: 2026-02-13T11:12:50Z
- Audio duration: PT4M3S
Transcript excerpt
This excerpt keeps the crawler page concise. Listen to the episode or use the RSS feed for the full update.
Hey there, amazing developers! Welcome back to another episode of VS Code - I'm your host, and wow, do we have an incredible day to unpack together. Grab your favorite coffee because we're diving into what I can only describe as VS Code's AI intelligence revolution.
Twenty merged pull requests landed yesterday, and friends, the theme is crystal clear - this team is absolutely on fire when it comes to making your AI coding experience smoother, smarter, and more intuitive.
Let's start with the headline act. Rob Lourens just shipped something that's going to make your chat interactions so much more discoverable - brand new /models and /tools slash commands. No more hunting around trying to figure out what models are available or what tools you can use. Just type the slash command and…
But that's just the beginning of our AI story today. Don Jayamanne has been working magic with background agents, and I'm genuinely excited about this. Background agents can now support prompt file slash commands. Think about what this means - your AI assistants are getting more context-aware, more helpful, and can…
Speaking of prompts, there's a fantastic collaboration story here. Paul from the team…
Now,…
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