Visual Studio Code 1.133 introduces new AI Agent Host architecture

Microsoft has released Visual Studio Code 1.133, featuring a significant architectural shift in how the editor manages AI agents. The update introduces a dedicated Agent Host process that decouples AI agent operations from the editor's extension host. This change allows agent sessions to run in the background, continuing even after an editor window is closed, and enables shared access across multiple windows, web dashboards, or CLI tools.

Alongside this architectural change, Microsoft has released the Agent Host Protocol (AHP) as an open specification under an MIT license. Positioned similarly to the Language Server Protocol (LSP) and Debug Adapter Protocol (DAP), AHP is intended to support extensible third-party tooling.

Additional features in this release include the ability to switch between Anthropic and Copilot models during Claude sessions, an experimental option to skip GitHub sign-in, and auto-reloading HTML within the integrated browser. The update is rolling out across Windows, macOS, and Linux.