Manage agent sessions in VS Code

A session is the unit of work with an agent in Visual Studio Code. It includes the sequence of prompts and responses, relevant context, and any files or resources associated with the task. This article describes how to create, organize, and manage sessions in both the Chat view and the Agents window.

Start an agent session

When you start an agent session, you begin a new conversation with the AI. Each session has its own context window and can run with a different agent harness. You can run multiple sessions in parallel, each focused on a different task or topic. Use the sessions list to monitor and switch between sessions.

Depending on how you prefer to work or the task you want to accomplish, you can choose between different chat experiences in VS Code. Each experience is optimized for different workflows, but they share the same underlying sessions to enable you to switch between them at any time.

Manage session context

The context window control in the chat input shows how much of the model's context window the session is using. Hover over the control to see the token count, a usage breakdown by category, and the total AI credits consumed by the session.

As the conversation grows, the control updates to reflect increasing context usage. The available context depends on the selected model.

How context changes across turns also affects prompt caching. Stable context lets the model provider reuse tokens from earlier requests, which lowers cost and latency. Use the Cache Explorer to check your cache hit rate.

Compact conversation context

Context compaction summarizes earlier conversation history to free space in the context window. Compaction lets you continue the same session with less irrelevant history and reduces the tokens sent with subsequent requests.

VS Code automatically compacts the conversation when the context window fills. To turn off automatic compaction, set github.copilot.chat.summarizeAgentConversationHistory.enabled Open in VS Code Open in VS Code Insiders to false.

To compact the conversation manually:

• Type /compact in the chat input. Optionally, add instructions for what the summary should retain, for example /compact focus on the database schema decisions.
• Select the context window control, and then select Compact Conversation.

Manual compaction is available for local, background, and Claude agent sessions. To reset the context entirely, start a new session.

Learn more about AI credit consumption.

Run multiple chats in a session

In an agent host session, you can run multiple chats as tabs in the chat area. Each chat has its own conversation, title, status, and agent or language model selection, but all chats share the session's workspace and worktree.

A new chat starts blank and doesn't inherit the history of the other chats. This is useful when you want to work on independent tasks in the same project without interrupting an ongoing chat or creating another session.

If you want to move context from the main chat to a new chat, you might opt to fork the session instead. Forking preserves the conversation history.

To create and manage chats in a session:

1. In an active session, select + New Chat in the session header, or press ⌘T (Windows, Linux Ctrl+T).

   

   A blank chat opens. When the session has more than one chat, a tab strip appears in the chat area. Chats don't appear as separate items in the sessions list.

2. To add more chats, select the trailing + in the tab strip.

3. Type a prompt and press Enter to start the chat.

Use the chat tabs and their context menus to:

• Switch chats: select a tab to show its conversation. Progress and unread indicators apply to that chat.
• Choose an agent or model: use the controls in each chat. Sibling chats can use different agents or models.
• Track changes: the session remains in progress while any chat is working. The session header Changes pill combines edits from all chats.
• Rename a chat: select Rename from the tab's context menu. Chat titles are independent of the session title.
• Close or reopen a chat: close a tab to hide it without deleting it. Use the Conversations dropdown to show or hide chats, or press ⇧⌘T (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+T) to reopen the most recently closed chat.
• Delete a chat: select Delete Chat from the tab's context menu, or press ⌘Backspace (Windows, Linux Delete) while the chat has focus. Deletion is permanent.

Visible and hidden chats, including their conversation history, are restored when you reload the window and reopen the session.

Ask side questions

Use a side chat to ask a question about the current conversation without adding the question or response to the main chat. A side chat opens as a peer chat tab and privately inherits the source conversation as context. Side chats favor explanation over action unless you ask the agent to make changes or perform a task.

Start a side chat in one of these ways:

• Type /btw <question> in the chat input. The side chat branches from the latest turn, including a response that is still in progress.
• Select text in a chat response, enter a question in the Ask Question input, and press Enter. The selected text and its response become context for the side chat.

Each question creates a new side chat. The side chat inherits the agent and language model from the source chat, but inherited messages remain hidden from its transcript.

Sessions list

The sessions list is your central hub for managing all your chat sessions, regardless of where you started them or where they are running. The sessions list shows your sessions with information about their status, type, and file changes.

Hover over a session to see actions for pinning or archiving it. Right-click a session in the list to see additional actions like deleting or changing the session's state. Some actions are specific to the session's harness and state. For example, you can check out a pull request for a cloud session.

Use the pinning action to keep important sessions easily accessible at the top of your list. Pinned sessions stay at the top of the list regardless of their activity or state, so you can quickly find and return to them.

Archive sessions

To keep the sessions list organized, archive or mark sessions as done when they're completed or you no longer need them. Archiving a session does not delete it. At any time, you can unarchive a session to restore it to the active sessions list.

When you archive (or mark as done) a session, its status changes so it moves out of the active sessions list. For a worktree session, VS Code commits uncommitted changes to the session branch before it removes the worktree folder. If VS Code can't preserve the changes or remove the worktree, the worktree remains. The branch and its commits are preserved, so restoring the session re-creates the worktree from that branch.

To archive a session, hover over the session in the sessions list and select the Archive (Chat view) or Mark as Done (Agents Window) option.

To view your archived sessions, use the filter options in the sessions list and select the Archived (Chat view) or Done (Agents Window) filter.

Delete sessions

To permanently delete a session, right-click the session in the sessions list and select Delete. Deleting a session removes it permanently and can't be undone. For Copilot sessions, deleting the session also removes any associated worktrees created for that session.

If multiple Copilot sessions share the same worktree, such as after you fork a session, deleting one session does not remove the shared worktree while another session still uses it. The worktree is removed only after the last linked session is deleted or archived.

Fork a chat session

Forking a chat session branches off the conversation and inherits the conversation history from the original session. In single-chat sessions and sessions that don't use an agent host, the fork opens as a new independent session. The conversation is separate, but its code changes are isolated only if the fork uses a different folder or worktree. The new session title is prefixed with "Forked:" to help you identify it.

For multi-chat Copilot sessions in the Agents window, the fork opens as a peer chat in the same session. The peer chat gets an automatically generated title and runs independently from sibling chats.

For Copilot sessions that use worktree isolation, the fork continues to use the same worktree as the original session.

Forking is useful when you want to explore an alternative approach, ask a side question, or branch a long conversation in a different direction without losing the original context.

There are two ways to fork a chat session:

• Fork the entire session: type /fork in the chat input box and press Enter. The fork opens with the full conversation history copied from the current session.

• Fork from a checkpoint: hover over a chat request in the conversation and select the Fork Conversation button. The fork includes only the requests up to and including that checkpoint.

  

Orchestrate sessions from agent host sessions

In agent host sessions, such as Copilot and Claude, agents can use built-in session-management tools to coordinate work across multiple sessions and chats. These tools are also available for Codex sessions when Codex runs on the Agent Host.

With these tools, an agent can:

• List your sessions and inspect metadata like status, workspace, and file changes.
• Create a new session for a sub-task, or create a new chat in an existing session.
• Read recent conversation context from another session before continuing work.
• Send a message to another session or chat to start or steer a follow-up task.

When a tool creates or targets a session, VS Code shows an Open Session pill in chat so you can jump directly to it.

To keep this workflow safe and predictable:

• Sending a message to another session always requires your confirmation.
• Agents cannot send messages to the same chat they are currently running in.
• Burst sends are capped to avoid unbounded fan-out.
• Archived sessions are excluded from listings unless explicitly requested.

Save and export chat sessions

You can save chat sessions to preserve important conversations or reuse them later for similar tasks.

Export a chat session as a JSON file

You can export a chat session to save it for later reference or share it with others. Exporting a chat session creates a JSON file that contains all prompts and responses from the session.

To export a chat session:

1. Open the chat session you want to export in the Chat view.

2. Run the Chat: Export Chat... command from the Command Palette (⇧⌘P (Windows, Linux Ctrl+Shift+P)).

3. Choose a location to save the JSON file.

Copy chat messages as Markdown

The Chat view supports different options for copying chat messages as Markdown to the clipboard, available through the context menu when you right-click a message or the chat background.

• Copy: Copy an individual prompt or response to the clipboard - the Markdown contains the response text, thinking steps, and tool calls.

• Copy All: Copy the entire chat session in Markdown format, including all prompts, responses, thinking steps, and tool calls.

• Copy Final Response: Copy just the final Markdown section of the agent's response, after the last tool call. This is useful for sharing or reusing the final output without the intermediate steps.

Session status indicator (Experimental)

The session status indicator provides quick access to your sessions directly from the command center in the title bar. The indicator displays visual badges for unread messages and in-progress sessions, so you can stay informed about AI activity without switching views.

The indicator shows:

• Unread sessions badge: shows the count of chat sessions with new messages. Select the badge to filter the sessions list to show only unread sessions.
• In-progress sessions badge: shows the count of sessions with running agents. Select the badge to filter the sessions list to show only in-progress sessions.
• Sparkle icon: provides quick access to chat and session management options.

You can configure the status indicator's visibility by using the chat.agentsControl.enabled Open in VS Code Open in VS Code Insiders setting.

View sessions on the VS Code welcome page

The VS Code welcome page can act as your startup experience for working with chat sessions. It provides quick access to your recent chat sessions, an embedded chat widget for starting new tasks, and quick actions for common tasks.

To configure the VS Code welcome page as your startup experience, set workbench.startupEditor Open in VS Code Open in VS Code Insiders to agentSessionsWelcomePage.

Related resources

• Use chat in VS Code
• Agents overview
• Add context to chat
• Best practices for using AI