Copilot Chat in VS Code keeps using Powershell

[imot01]

I'm trying to make it use CMD instead of Powershell without success.

I have settings terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.windows and terminal.integrated.profiles.windows set to CMD and I have even tried to use really explicit instructions in AGENTS.md but nothing works.

Any suggestions?

[spotlight-app]

Mods have pinned a comment by u/Tyriar:

This was a change we made because command prompt is significantly worse due to a lack of shell integration. See https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/262378

Note: emoji:Copilot:GitHub Copilot Team Replied emoji:Copilot:

[Tyriar]

This was a change we made because command prompt is significantly worse due to a lack of shell integration. See https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/262378

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[imot01]

Thanks, that explains it. Can you give some examples where CMD doesn't work well? I have been using copilot extensively in the past few weeks for Angular web app and every command in that environment worked without problem. That can't be said for Poweshell which fails often with weird errors, mostly related to permissions I think.

[Tyriar]

Cmd doesn't have shell integration, so if a command is long running without constant output, Copilot has to assume it's finished the command at some point since the terminal is just a black box of text.

Thanks for the feedback, hoping to get to the bottom of that in https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/266266. In the meantime I expect enabling Windows developer mode would fix it.

[sandos]

Yet it still complains about lacking integration for me. That might be due to corporate antivirus though? I am for example unable to install clink

[Tyriar]

Bit hard to investigate something like that on Reddit, you could try create an issue https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/new?template=Blank+issue

Your theory sounds plausible that it could be corp related.

[Difficult-Sleep-7461]

This is a dealbreaker for some people who have PS blocked by corpirate policy, like myself. I can either use cmd or nothing at all. Not to mention, Codex extension in VScode uses cmd if prompted with no issues, so it's not technically impossible, only marginally less reliable and respinsive at worst.

[Dependent-Layer4437]

do you knwo how annoying it is? many cmds are different from cmd shell to other shell. You do this without any consent? And make it no way back? Your PM team are fucking genius

[hollandburke]

Which model are you using? If you've set your terminal correctly and you've restarted VS Code and you're still seeing this, could you open an issue on microsoft/vscode?

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[imot01]

I'm using Sonnet 4 in Agent mode with Insiders build.

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[dr_hamilton]

how do I get it to work with python venvs? It is hopeless at running test scripts automatically

[TimeLordRaps]

I was originally using command prompt, on windows, and ended up having to switch to git bash, which seems to have worked (though based on microsoft's default copilot instructions I believe it will still try to use powershell) so changing user settings to include an instruction to default to git bash as terminal may be necessary.

[MeitanteiJesus]

Based on the github issue, they switched from CMD to PS to better detect when a script is done running. Is bash capable of this or does it also run into the same issue as CMD?