Keep Copilot app sessions inside VS Code to avoid redoing work

Small teams can stop recreating agent work in the editor: open a Copilot app session in VS Code to save review and debug time and reduce the risk of losing context.

What actually changed

GitHub added a way to open a GitHub Copilot app session directly inside Visual Studio Code so the conversation, code changes and working context travel with you into the editor. From VS Code you can review the agent’s diffs line by line, continue the same conversation, modify files, run the project locally and push updates to the pull request linked to the session. The post presents this as a workflow hand‑off: the Copilot app performs routine or time‑consuming work, then hands active control back to the developer in VS Code for closer review and testing. The announcement calls out the ability to "continue the same conversation."

Who it affects

• Developers already using the GitHub Copilot app who also use Visual Studio Code.
• Reviewers and small engineering teams that rely on Copilot app sessions to generate bulk changes and need to inspect, edit and run code locally before merging.
• Any workflow where a Copilot app session is associated with a pull request and must be finalised from an editor rather than the app.

The blog lists prerequisites you must already meet: the GitHub Copilot app must be installed and signed in, Visual Studio Code must be installed and connected to the same GitHub account, and you need an active Copilot app session to open in the editor.

What it costs or what it replaces

The announcement does not state pricing. It does not list plan names, licence tiers or extra fees for this capability.

Functionally, the change replaces the earlier choice described in the post — between staying in the Copilot app session or starting over in Visual Studio Code — by letting you continue the session inside VS Code instead of recreating the conversation and edits from scratch. In practical terms that reduces hand‑offs where context or agent decisions might be lost, and removes the manual step of re‑issuing prompts or reconstructing diffs in the editor. The post frames this as a time‑saving developer workflow rather than a separate product.

What we don't know

• Whether this capability requires a specific Copilot plan or is included in all Copilot subscriptions — the post does not state pricing or plan requirements.
• How session state is synchronised in edge cases (merge conflicts, simultaneous edits, or when the PR has changed since the session started).
• Whether the feature works in VS Code Web or only the desktop client; the post specifies Visual Studio Code but gives no platform detail.
• What audit, logging or enterprise controls are available when sessions are opened in VS Code.
• How extensions, local environment differences or workspace settings affect the transferred session context.

What to do next

1. If you run Copilot app sessions, install the Copilot app and sign in, then connect your Visual Studio Code client to the same GitHub account to verify the prerequisites the post lists.
2. Try the flow on a non‑critical repository: open a Copilot app session, continue it in VS Code, review edits, run tests locally and push to the PR to confirm how your team's tooling and merge workflow behave.
3. If your organisation has procurement or security requirements, ask GitHub which Copilot plans include this capability and how session auditing and conflict handling are managed before rolling it out team‑wide.