The 9 September release adds Automations, agent tasks that start every hour, day or week. The experimental Voice Mode lets you talk to the agent and interrupt it while it works. GitHub issues and pull requests open in the Agents window without the repository being open.
- Automations (preview): templates for catching up on changes, triaging issues and finding bugs, or your own prompt on a schedule.
- Voice Mode (experimental): requires an individual GitHub Copilot plan, not available on Business and Enterprise.
- A quick chat without a project can now be attached to a folder and continue as a workspace session.
Monday morning. The agent has gone through the weekend's issues, sorted them and left a note on what's broken. Nobody started it.
That is what Automations in VS Code 1.137 promises. It sounds small, but it is a shift: until now the agent started when you told it to. Now it also starts by the clock, while you sleep.
The two moves that matter
The schedule is the first. An agent that runs checks while you're away is exactly as useful as it is well constrained. If it can touch only what it needs and leaves a trail of what it did, you gain a morning. If it can do more, you gain a surprise.
Voice is the second, and it surprised me pleasantly. Not because of the dictation, but because of the interruption. Saying "stop, not there" in the middle of the work is exactly what you do with a colleague next to you.
Voice Mode is for individual plans only. If your company is on Copilot Business, you'll watch this one from the side and use the schedule, which is for everyone.