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VS Code 1.134 Release — Side-by-Side Agent Chats, Prompt Timeline, Find-in-Chat

#vscode #agents #programming #microsoft

Originally published at https://tekmag.thsite.top/vs-code-1134-release-side-by-side-agent-messengers-prompt-timeline-find-in-messenger/

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VS Code 1.134 Release: Side-by-Side Agent Chats, Prompt Timeline, Find-in-Chat

VS Code 1.134 landed on August 19, 2026, and the release is unmistakably about agent workflows. The update adds side-by-side chat grids, a prompt timeline for long conversations, Find in Chat with regex support, and the ability to preview HTML files in the integrated browser. Together these move VS Code away from being a text editor that happens to run agents toward a workspace built around multi-session AI collaboration.

Visual Studio Code 1.134 release announcement showing the new agent workflow features

What changed in VS Code 1.134

Microsoft shipped VS Code 1.134 on August 19, 2026 as part of the regular monthly release cadence. The update did not introduce breaking changes or a new major version of the underlying runtime. Instead it concentrated on four features that make managing multiple agent sessions practical rather than fragile.

The previous release cycle focused on performance tuning and TypeScript migration inside the Copilot extension. Those changes, including the type-checking speedup from 22 seconds down to 4 seconds, belong to VS Code 1.119 released in May 2026. VS Code 1.134 pivoted back toward the user-facing agent experience, which had been lagging behind the pace of single-session improvements.

Key Takeaways

  • Side-by-side chat grids let you arrange related conversations in horizontal or vertical groups, with drag-and-drop support and layout persistence across reloads.
  • Prompt timeline adds a navigable history in the Agents window gutter, showing each prompt as a dot with add/remove line counts for file-changing prompts.
  • Find in Chat (Ctrl+F / Cmd+F) searches the entire conversation including collapsed content, with case, whole-word, and regex matching.
  • HTML previews now render inside the integrated browser when configured via workbench.editorAssociations, keeping links and navigation in-context.
  • Agent Host improvements allow connecting to the same agent session from multiple VS Code windows using the Agent Host Protocol.

Side-by-side chat grids

Before 1.134, opening multiple agent conversations meant stacking tabs or switching between them one at a time. The new grid layout solves that friction by letting you place two or more chat sessions next to each other in a single pane.

You arrange chats by dragging them from the Chats picker into horizontal or vertical groups. An Alt+click on any chat entry opens it to the side of the current view. The layout is saved automatically and restored when you reload the window, so you do not need to rebuild your arrangement after every restart.

This matters because agent workflows rarely stay linear. A developer might run a subagent to fix a bug in one pane while monitoring a separate analysis conversation in another. Seeing both at once removes the toggle cost and lets patterns emerge that were harder to notice switching between isolated tabs.

Prompt timeline

Long agent conversations create a different problem than short ones: you lose track of where you are and what happened between the current moment and the earlier prompts. The prompt timeline lives in the transcript gutter of the Agents window and answers that question visually.

Each dot in the gutter represents one prompt. The highlighted dot marks your current position. Hovering over a dot shows the prompt text without needing to scroll back. Clicking a dot jumps the transcript to that point immediately. Prompts that modified files display the number of lines added and removed right in the gutter, so you can spot which turns were the most impactful without opening the conversation history.

The behavior is controlled by the setting sessions.chatTimeline.display, which accepts either ruler or off. The default is ruler, meaning the timeline appears automatically for new conversations. Switching it to off hides the gutter but preserves the jump-to-prompt functionality for sessions that already have data.

Find in Chat

Finding a specific response in a long agent conversation used to require scrolling or remembering which turn contained the answer. VS Code 1.134 adds a proper search command mapped to workbench.action.chat.find, available through Ctrl+F on Windows and Linux or Cmd+F on macOS.

The search scans the entire conversation, including content that is currently collapsed under work summaries. That means a response buried inside an expanded code block or a truncated answer still shows up in results. Three matching modes are available: case-sensitive, whole-word, and regex. Auto-scroll brings the active match into view and expands any collapsed work summaries along the way.

This feature closes a gap that existed since chat became a first-class part of VS Code. Before 1.134, the only way to locate past content was manual scrolling, which became unreliable once conversations exceeded a few dozen turns.

HTML preview in the integrated browser

Previewing HTML files in VS Code has always required either an external browser or the built-in preview extension, which renders pages in an iframe but does not handle client-side navigation well. The 1.134 update lets you set the integrated browser as the default editor for HTML files through the workbench.editorAssociations setting.

When configured this way, double-clicking an HTML file opens it in the integrated browser pane instead of the text editor. Links and in-page navigation open in new tabs within that same pane, preserving the editor association so you do not accidentally drop back into the text view. The feature was first added to Insiders on August 10, 2026 before stabilizing in the main release.

This matters for developers who edit HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in the same window and want immediate visual feedback without context-switching. The integrated browser already supports extensions and DevTools integration, so the preview environment is more capable than the legacy iframe approach.

Agent Host improvements

Agent Host is the subsystem that runs external agent harnesses such as GitHub Copilot, Claude, and Codex in dedicated processes rather than embedding them inside the main editor. VS Code 1.134 continues work on this layer, with the most visible improvement being the ability to connect to the same agent session from multiple VS Code windows.

The architecture uses the Agent Host Protocol, abbreviated AHP, to coordinate between windows and the external harness. Copilot's agent integration in this release is powered by the Copilot SDK. Microsoft notes that Agent Host remains actively under development, so the feature set may continue to expand in future releases.

The multi-window capability is the practical difference for most users. Instead of losing a running agent session when you open a second window for a different task, you can now attach that second window to the same session and share the conversation context without duplicating setup or rerunning prompts.

What this means for VS Code users

VS Code 1.134 does not change the core editing experience. The diff, terminal, Git, and debugging tooling remain in their previous states. The release is narrowly focused on making agent conversations easier to navigate, search, and arrange. See also Microsoft PowerToys v0.101 Preview for related productivity improvements from Microsoft.

That focus makes sense given the direction of the product. Agent integrations have moved from experimental extensions to default features inside VS Code, and the tooling around those integrations has not kept pace with the speed of the integrations themselves. Side-by-side grids, prompt timeline, and Find in Chat are the first coordinated attempt to treat agent conversations as something you manage rather than something you pass through. For context on AI agent workflow evolution, see also the recent class-action filing over AI training data.

Conclusion

VS Code 1.134 is a measured update that targets the pain points users actually encounter when working with agent conversations at scale. The side-by-side grid removes tab clutter. The prompt timeline gives you a map of long sessions. Find in Chat closes the search gap. HTML preview in the integrated browser connects editing and viewing without leaving the window.

The release does not promise to replace other agent tools or solve every workflow problem. But it moves the editor closer to treating agent sessions as a first-class workspace element rather than an afterthought bolted onto a text editor.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does VS Code 1.134 include TypeScript 7?
No. The TypeScript 7 migration and the associated performance improvement, which cut Copilot extension type-checking from 22 seconds to 4 seconds, shipped in VS Code 1.119 in May 2026. VS Code 1.134 does not mention TypeScript changes.

Q: How do I enable the prompt timeline?
The prompt timeline is enabled by default. You can control it through the setting sessions.chatTimeline.display, which accepts ruler to show the gutter or off to hide it.

Q: Can I use Find in Chat across collapsed responses?
Yes. Find in Chat searches the entire conversation including content hidden inside collapsed work summaries. It also auto-expands collapsed summaries when jumping to a match.

Q: How do I set the integrated browser as the default HTML editor?
Add an entry to workbench.editorAssociations mapping the html language or file pattern to the integrated browser editor. Links inside the preview will open in new tabs while keeping the browser association active.

Q: Is Agent Host production-ready?
Agent Host is functional but still actively being developed. The multi-window session sharing feature works, but Microsoft describes the overall system as ongoing work rather than a finalized capability.

References

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