Microsoft Releases VS Code 1.139 with AI Agent Remote Development and 12x Faster Session Management

Microsoft has released Visual Studio Code version 1.139, focusing on AI Agent remote development and large-scale session management. Developers can now run Agents directly inside Dev Containers for remote projects hosted on SSH, Tunnel, and WSL, using the project's existing toolchain and dependencies to reduce the need for repeated environment setup.

For session performance, the new version introduces a centralized lightweight metadata directory for session lists, avoiding the need to open all conversation databases each time the list is built. In a test with about 645 sessions, the first list load dropped from 1.3 seconds to 0.1 seconds, about 12 times faster; refreshing the list dropped from 0.6 seconds to 0.15 seconds, about 4 times faster.

For session management, a Compact View has been added, allowing users to show more sessions in the Agents Window, hide empty groups, and rename sessions and their nested chats directly by double-clicking, using the right-click menu, or pressing F2.