VS Code 1.145 landed on November 4 with four features that change how AI agents work inside the editor: remote app previews, five-field cron scheduling, mixed-harness sessions that run Claude, Codex, and Copilot side-by-side, and tightened MCP enterprise controls. The release is a quiet but clear signal that Microsoft isn’t building an AI-native IDE — it’s building the place where every AI agent lives.
Run Multiple AI Providers in One Session
The most significant addition in 1.145 is mixed harness sessions. With chat.agentHost.multipleChatProviders.enabled turned on, nested sessions can now use a different harness than their parent. That means a Copilot session can spawn a Claude review session, which can spawn a Codex test session — all within the same editor window, each with its own model, permissions, and conversation history.
This is Microsoft’s direct answer to the AI IDE fragmentation problem. Cursor locks you into Cursor. Windsurf locks you into Windsurf. VS Code’s bet is that most developers would rather keep their familiar editor and bring whatever AI they want, rather than learn a new tool every time the best model changes. It’s a sound bet — especially as Claude and Codex have been gaining traction in teams that already standardized on VS Code.
The feature is in preview and requires the flag. It won’t work if your organization has disabled multiple chat providers in managed settings.
Preview Remote Dev Servers Inside VS Code
The second headline feature solves a problem that’s been friction for anyone running agents on remote machines. When an agent session runs on a remote host — via SSH or a dev tunnel — the integrated browser now routes through that host. If the agent starts a dev server, you can open and preview it directly in the Agents window without touching a separate browser or manually forwarding a port.
Remote Canvases work the same way: interactive agent-generated interfaces hosted on the remote machine show up inside VS Code. Both features are in preview and require workbench.browser.enableRemoteProxy. For teams doing cloud-first development, this closes a workflow loop that previously required constant context switching.
Cron Expressions for Local Automations
Automation scheduling gets a real upgrade. Instead of choosing from preset options, you can now enter a full five-field cron expression for local automations — the same syntax used in a crontab or GitHub Actions workflow.
# Run a code-review automation every weekday at 9 AM
0 9 * * 1-5
# Run every 15 minutes during business hours
*/15 9-17 * * 1-5One important limitation: cron expressions are available for local automations only. Cloud automations still use the preset-based scheduler in this release. Custom workspace agents can now be selected in automations as well, so project-specific agent configurations apply to recurring tasks.
Breaking Changes: Check Your Prompt Files
The Local harness lost four tools in 1.145 that some teams may be relying on:
- #installExtension — agents no longer install extensions directly; they write to
.vscode/extensions.jsonfor the developer to review - #runCommand — agents can no longer trigger VS Code commands directly in Local sessions
- #newWorkspace and /new — workspace and project creation tools removed
This is a deliberate philosophy shift. Microsoft is pulling back AI autonomy in the Local harness — agents now advise and recommend rather than act. If you have prompt files or automation scripts that call these tools, they will silently fail. Audit your .vscode/ and any shared prompt templates before rolling out 1.145 to your team.
MCP and files.exclude Fixes
Two smaller but useful changes round out the release. On the enterprise side, the managed allowedMcpServers list now takes precedence over registry-only restrictions — organizations can approve MCP servers without publishing them to their registry. Policy refresh failures no longer clear restrictions; the last known state persists until GitHub reports no policy applies.
For individual developers, files.exclude now supports exception patterns. Prefix a path with ! to show specific files inside otherwise-excluded folders — useful for monorepos where you want to hide node_modules but still navigate node_modules/@types:
"files.exclude": {
"node_modules": true,
"!node_modules/@types": true
}Upgrade Now
VS Code 1.145 is available on the stable channel; version 1.145.1 is already out with minor fixes. Run Help > Check for Updates or review the full VS Code 1.145 release notes. Teams relying on #installExtension or #runCommand in prompt files should audit before deploying 1.145 widely. For the full picture on VS Code’s agent model, the VS Code Wrapped October 2026 post covers how these features fit the broader roadmap.
