Microsoft just made it possible to use VS Code completely offline with local AI

Following on from the release of Visual Studio Code 1.121 last week, Microsoft has announced Visual Studio Code 1.122. This week, the Redmond giant has enhanced the agent experience and made Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) more flexible. There are also new capabilities for testing web apps across devices.

The first notable change in this update is that BYOK now works without signing in, so you can use chat, tools, and MCP servers in air-gapped or restricted environments where it might not be possible to sign in with GitHub. Microsoft notes that this also enables fully offline workflows with local models like Ollama.

To start using this feature, you need to run Manage Language Models from the Command Palette and add a provider. When you’ve configured at least one BYOK model, the Chat view will become available, and sign-in prompts will be suppressed.

With regards to new capabilities for testing web apps across devices, VS Code’s integrated browser now includes out-of-the-box support for device emulation, including screen sizes, mobile/touch emulation, custom user-agents, and more. This update is useful for web development and debugging because it lets you test your website’s responsiveness and behavior across different devices directly from VS Code without needing to switch to a separate browser or use external tools.

You can get started from the browser tab and then select the Show Emulation Toolbar command from the overflow menu. Microsoft notes that agents can also trigger device emulation via Playwright code to catch stuff like mobile responsiveness issues.

Finally, this update delivers an improved issue reporting flow. To help Microsoft understand and fix problems you run into in VS Code, it has decided to improve the issue reporting flow with a new issue reporting wizard. This wizard will guide you through creating high-quality issues directly from VS Code, including adding relevant details, screenshots, and video recordings.

To learn more about the rest of the changes Microsoft has made, check out the full release notes. Your VS Code install should let you know about the new update. Just follow the instructions to install it.