Visual Studio Code 1.100 launched with custom instructions and reusable prompts for Chat

Microsoft has released the latest version of Visual Studio Code, known as the April 2025 release or version 1.100. It brings plenty of improvements, all of which you can read about below. One notable feature that you should look out for is the ability to craft custom instructions in the Chat feature.

Here are some of the key highlights from this update:

• Chat
  • Custom instructions and reusable prompts (more...).
  • Smarter results with tools for GitHub, extensions, and notebooks (more...).
  • Image and Streamable HTTP support for MCP (more...).
• Chat performance
  • Faster responses on repeat chat requests (more...).
  • Faster edits in agent mode (more...).
• Editor experience
  • Improved multi-window support for chat and editors (more...).
  • Staged changes now easier to identify (more...).

In addition to the new features listed above, this latest version of Visual Studio Code is getting a new base model, in the form of GPT-4.1, one of OpenAI's latest advanced language models. While this model excels in coding, you can always change it in the Chat view to another model at any time.

If you're not too keen on using AI to help you do your coding, a change that may appeal to you in this update are the two new floating window modes: compact and always-on-top. In compact mode, some UI elements are hidden to show more code and always-on-top keeps you chosen window on top of all the other windows until you leave that mode.

Finally, affecting code editing, this update includes a new Next Edit Suggestions (NES) model that gives you faster and more context-relevant code suggestions. Aside from suggestions being given quicker, they're also less intrusive and align more closely with your recent edits.

If you want to download this update, get it from the Visual Studio Code website. If you already have it installed, look out for any notifications about the update.