Iteration Plan for September 2025 #266653

This plan captures our work in September 2025. This is a 4-week iteration. We will ship in early October. It is a continuation of the August plan without any additions. Although a 4-week iteration, we'll have only 1 dev week. The second week is reserved for planning and engineering conversations.

Endgame

• September 29, 2025: Endgame begins
• October 3, 2025: Endgame done

The endgame details for this iteration are tracked here.

Plan Items

Below is a summary of the top level plan items.

Legend of annotations:

Accessibility

• Accessibility issues, see query Megan Rogge (@meganrogge) Anthony Kim (@anthonykim1) team
• Monaco editor forced system colors issues monaco-editor#4945, monaco-editor#4985, and monaco-editor#4942 Hawk Ticehurst (@hawkticehurst)

Code Editor

• 🏃 Allow using LSP in the Monaco Editor vscode#262872 Henning Dieterichs (@hediet)
• 🏃 Allow configuring font family, font size and line height via syntactic tokens vscode#263545 Aiday Marlen Kyzy (@aiday-mar)

Source Control

• Git: Copilot powered conflict resolutions vscode#255801 Ladislau Szomoru (@lszomoru)

Settings

• 🏃 Re-evaluate settings and defaults throughout VS Code vscode#260404 Courtney Webster (@cwebster-99)

Languages

Python

• 🏃 Roll out Python Environments Extension as bundled by default with the Python Extension vscode-python-environments#190 Eleanor Boyd (@eleanorjboyd)
• 🏃 Build "Diagnose with AI" flow for Python Environment Extension vscode-python-environments#592 Eleanor Boyd (@eleanorjboyd)

Terminal

• ⬛ 🏃 Ship shell-agnostic terminal intellisense by default in stable vscode#226562 Megan Rogge (@meganrogge) Daniel Imms (@Tyriar)
• 🏃 Take ownership of terminal-links, terminal-find, terminal-layout, terminal-sticky-scroll, terminal-local-echo, terminal-external vscode#261683 Anthony Kim (@anthonykim1)

Tasks

• Preserve terminal name for task vscode#254295 Megan Rogge (@meganrogge)

API

• API proposals: query Matt Bierner (@mjbvz) Alex Ross (@alexr00)
• API finalization: query Matt Bierner (@mjbvz) Alex Ross (@alexr00)

AI

MCP

• Polish MCP client experience, see query Sandeep Somavarapu (@sandy081)

Prompt, Instruction and Mode Files

• Support completions for tools in text vscode#262159 Martin Aeschlimann (@aeschli)
• 🏃 Identify and close gaps needed to implement multi-step modes such as TDD vscode#261542 Harald Kirschner (@digitarald) Martin Aeschlimann (@aeschli) roblourens
• Explore expressing MCP or extension dependencies within prompt and mode files vscode#262161 Martin Aeschlimann (@aeschli)
• 💪 Improve /save for reusable prompts vscode#262163 Martin Aeschlimann (@aeschli)

Chat

• ✋ Support to approve agent mode confirmations from desktop notifications vscode#251621 Benjamin Pasero (@bpasero)
• 🏃 Support for CoT tokens vscode#257104 Justin Chen (@justschen) Karthik Nadig (@karthiknadig) Joanna Oikawa (@jo-oikawa)
• Handle temporary model issues based on server response vscode#259713 Logan Ramos (@lramos15)
• 🏃 Review and address Chat UX feedback from social channels vscode#26703 Justin Chen (@justschen) Joanna Oikawa (@jo-oikawa) Benjamin Pasero (@bpasero) Isidor Nikolic (@isidorn)
• Polish Todo list UI vscode#253518 Bhavya U (@bhavyaus) Harald Kirschner (@digitarald)
• 🏃 Explore supporting Mermaid diagram rendering in Chat vscode-copilot-release#7440 Matt Bierner (@mjbvz)

Tools and tools management

• 🏃 Improve pre-selection of tools vscode#263272 Connor Peet (@connor4312) yufanhuang-ms
• 🏃 💪 Improve editing model to correctly reflect file renames vscode#263275 Connor Peet (@connor4312)

Terminal/task tools

• 🏃 Terminal tool UX refresh vscode#257468 Daniel Imms (@Tyriar) Joanna Oikawa (@jo-oikawa)
• 💪 Re-routing of calls to terminal tool to appropriate native tools vscode#253884 Daniel Imms (@Tyriar)

NES / Completions

• 🏃 Create an npm package which contains NES as a library vscode-copilot-chat#216 Christof Marti (@chrmarti)

Integrations

• 🏃 Improve the integration with the GH Coding Agent (aka Padawan)
  • 🏃 Improve Delegate to Coding Agent button workflow vscode#260228 joshspicer Joanna Oikawa (@jo-oikawa)
  • 💪 Support generating copilot-setup-steps.yml vscode#260225 Osvaldo Ortega (@osortega)
• 🏃 Chat session provider api vscode#256396 Matt Bierner (@mjbvz) Osvaldo Ortega (@osortega) joshspicer

Engineering

• Issue Reporter: Add Create/Preview option + repo routing choices vscode#260182 Michael Lively (@Yoyokrazy)
• Investigate leveraging Playwright MCP with vscode codebase vscode#262164 TylerLeonhardt

Documentation

• Create agent mode cookbook vscode-docs#8743 Nick Trogh (@ntrogh) Harald Kirschner (@digitarald)
• Create docs about using local language models vscode-docs#8869 Nick Trogh (@ntrogh) Isidor Nikolic (@isidorn)

Website

• None

Deferred

• Inline Chat V2 for notebooks improvement vscode#259903 Aaron Munger (@amunger)
• Improve how the terminal tool deals with multiple terminals vscode#253263 Daniel Imms (@Tyriar)
• Explore Optimistic Next Edit Suggestions vscode-copilot-chat#222 Christof Marti (@chrmarti)
• Explore layouts for Chat session + Multi File Diff vscode#260226 joshspicer
• ✋ 💪 Support MCP registries Connor Peet (@connor4312)
• ✋ Remove all hard-coded styles with variables vscode#248725 Lee Murray (@mrleemurray)
• Improve VS Code Figma design resources vscode#249227 Kaitlin Brooks (@kkbrooks)
• Monitor the current TypeScript context provider experiment vscode#255373 Dirk Bäumer (@dbaeumer)
• Improve rendering of prompt file usage in Chat vscode#253014 Martin Aeschlimann (@aeschli) Justin Chen (@justschen)
• Support Copilot Chat in web vscode#245860 Benjamin Pasero (@bpasero)
• 💪 Explore anchored quick widget for mouse interactions to attach context vscode#238095 TylerLeonhardt
• Suggest to user to move app to /Applications on startup vscode#213909 Robo (@deepak1556)
• 💪 Opt-in to LLM-based approval vscode#253267 Daniel Imms (@Tyriar)
• 💪 Explore offering inline completions in the chat input box vscode#255818 Aiday Marlen Kyzy (@aiday-mar)
• 💪 Explore rendering unaccepted files in SCM vscode#254456 Aiday Marlen Kyzy (@aiday-mar) Ladislau Szomoru (@lszomoru)
• STest cache explorer vscode#255803 João Moreno (@joaomoreno)
• Explore moving notebook tools into core vscode#260234 Don Jayamanne (@DonJayamanne) Aaron Munger (@amunger)
• 💪 Improve width of ToC, and overall the width of a docs page that's available vscode-docs#8485 Hawk Ticehurst (@hawkticehurst)
• Explore Builtin create pull request tool / integration in Copilot Chat vscode#255387 Alex Ross (@alexr00)