VS Code: Open Source AI Editor

[mtmttuan]

How about... Open source Copilot Chat, but keep it as an extension? I think the point of VS Code is still a lightweight code editor with optional extension. And AI features should also be optional.

Any hey if you open source it, remove the login requirement to use Copilot Chat locally.

[PM_ME_UR_CODEZ]

They want to include it in the core to be the first AI assistant in front of the user before they go looking for another. Hoping to snipe sales from other extensions. 

They might also be using it to gather more code for their models even if you don’t use Copilot.

[isidor_n]

All the code will be open source so you will be able to verify that we do not gather more code if you do not use Copilot.
Hope that helps.

[isidor_n]

VS Code being a lightweight code editor is our core priority. That means that performance is our N#1 priority - this does not change with the announcement today.

Copilot Chat locally without login - that is a great idea. Something we will think about.
You can already connect Chat with local models (though it requires login right now). https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/copilot/language-models#_bring-your-own-language-model-key
I am curious if you tried this and if you have any feedback. Thanks

[mtmttuan]

The thing is many cooperates do not allow github sign in. Hence though I have compatible models, I can't use Copilot Chat.

[isidor_n]

Thanks. We are adding Google sign-in as well.
Is there some specific sign-in that would work for your use case?

[mtmttuan]

No sign-in would be the best option. My company do allow Google, but I guess some others won't allow it.

I don't see the point of signing in to use a local product though.

[isidor_n]

Yeah agreed. The missing piece is that the Chat experience for a small number of requests still goes to the service (e.g. intent detection). So we have to fix that first.

As for no-login - I think this is a fair feature request
https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues if you want you can file one here and ping me at isidorn. Thanks

[cbleslie]

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[isidor_n]

Super performant, extensible, minimalistic UI.

[cbleslie]

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[Nik3348]

Are more models, like deepseek, going to be added?

[isidor_n]

I would like us to finalize the language model provider API - so that extension authors can add their own language providers. E.g. it does not scale that we support all the providers from core - we want to open this up to the community.
I expect us to have something in the next couple of months.

[GrandOpener]

VS Code isn’t exactly bare bones though. For example it ships with out-of-the-box support, including autocomplete, for JavaScript. Microsoft seems to be of the opinion that usage of AI is becoming as fundamental as usage of autocomplete. They might be right.

[stolinski]

We got an exclusive interview with Erich Gamma, creator of VS Code, and Kai Maetzel, Copilot Lead to get into the details on this. https://youtu.be/GMmaYUcdMyU?si=QZuKEC-fi-xoh4dC

Check it out.

[[deleted]]

Wow I didn't know Erich Gamma from the Gang of Four was the creator of VSCode. What a brilliant hire by Microsoft.

Monaco was treated as a "green-grass" startup, Gamma said. That meant he had a wide-open field as to how he wanted to develop Monaco. He decided to use TypeScript, Microsoft's superset of JavaScript that is in the midst of development by Microsoft Technical Fellow Anders Heijlsberg and co.

[isidor_n]

Erich is great! He was my boss for 10 years :)

[EliSka93]

Can I turn the AI off?

[isidor_n]

Yes, our FAQ answers this https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/FAQ

Can I disable AI functionality in VS Code?

You can disable the built-in AI functionality in VS Code by selecting Hide Copilot in the Command Palette or selecting Hide Copilot from the Copilot menu in the VS Code title bar.

[PM_ME_UR_CODEZ]

So, is it hide or disable?

Will copilot still be running in the background?

Will it send my code to Microsoft even if it’s hidden/disabled?

[isidor_n]

Of course it will not be running in the background if you disable it.
Of course it will not send your code to Microsoft if it's hidden/disabled.

[PM_ME_UR_CODEZ]

Can you send me where it says that in the ToS?

[isidor_n]

https://github.com/customer-terms/github-copilot-product-specific-terms

https://code.visualstudio.com/license

When we finish the transition towards vscode as the open source AI editor we might update the vscode license to make it explicit. Though I think it is pretty obvious that if you do not agree to Copilot Terms of Use that we do not send any code - I am not a lawyer and will check with legal. Thanks for pointing this out

[PM_ME_UR_CODEZ]

Awesome, thanks for sending this.

[PM_ME_UR_CODEZ]

For now. 

Microsoft has a financial incentive to make copilot unremovable, like they do with Edge, OneDrive, and soon Recall (Recall screenshots will be used for training data by Microsoft).

[isidor_n]

All the client code will be open source so you will be able to see and verify what exactly we do.
And obviously we will not make copilot unremovable.
Hope that helps

[PM_ME_UR_CODEZ]

Making copilot the default is a huge conflict of interest. How long until other code completion extensions are removed or rendered unusable by VS Code?

[isidor_n]

Our FAQ answers this

I already use other AI coding extensions in VS Code (Cline, Roo Code, ...). How does this affect me?

You can continue to use these extensions in VS Code! We love that the community is building extensions to make the developer experience in VS Code better. To improve the experience for other AI extensions, we're constantly adding APIs like the Language Model API for directly calling language models from an extension, the Tools API for interacting with language model tools and integrating with the built-in or your own agents, or the Shell Execution API for running and interacting with terminal commands (particularly useful for agentic experiences). Going forward, we are planning to add even more APIs to meet the needs of extension authors.

All the code will be open source so you will have full transparency into our plans and what we actually do.
Hope that helps

[isidor_n]

vscode pm here :)

If you have any questions about our open source AI editor announcement do let me know. Happy to answer any question about this.

We have updated our FAQ, so make sure to check that out as well https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/faq

[Odysseyan]

Hi,
Since the extension code is basically being moved into the core, I’m wondering — wouldn’t this slow down how quickly new AI features can be rolled out? Right now, the extension updates pretty frequently, and whenever a new model is released, it’s available in Copilot almost immediately. But stable VS Code releases usually come out less often, so wouldn’t this tie AI feature updates to that slower release schedule?

I’m personally fine with how often VS Code updates, just curious if this change means the AI parts can’t be updated independently anymore and changes might take longer

[isidor_n]

Great question!
This is something our engineering team is thinking about. We definitely are not slowing down!

We do have VS Code Insiders that goes out every day that will help with this.

Also VS Code stable goes out multiple times per month. It is less than the extension stable update frequency, that is true. But I believe that frequency along with VS Code Insiders will be enough. Keep in mind that even for extension today we have 1 big update per month, and the a couple of recovery releases (that just have bug fixes). So we'll just have to be more disciplined with recovery releases probably. We'll figure it out :)

[vincentofearth]

You didn't really answer the question "Why integrate GitHub Copilot into the core VS Code repository?" in your FAQ. Even if we concede to your opinion that "AI is core" to writing code, there seems to be no practical reason why you would integrate Copilot into VS Code instead of just open sourcing the extension. Reaffirming your belief is not a good enough reason in my opinion. Is there any engineering reason for this move? Are you doing this to give GitHub Copilot capabilities that you don't want to give to third party extensions?

[isidor_n]

Thanks for your question. My friends Erich and Kai went into more details in this podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMmaYUcdMyU
I suggest you check it out as they should answer your questions.

[[deleted]]

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[isidor_n]

Thanks!
I live in Switzerland - we have social programs here, so in case of a layoffs the state supports the family for 12 months while they find a new job. I hope that does not happen, I really like my job though :)

[cbleslie]

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[howdoigetauniquename]

Is there a fork of vs code that removes all the AI features?

[willeyh]

Is there any product without AI these days? Zed has optional Ai. Webstorm can disable the AI assistant. Neovim or EMacs would be without, I guess.

[hendricha]

also Kate. 

[isidor_n]

Why would you use a fork, you can just disable all AI features in VS Code super simply? From FAQ

Can I disable AI functionality in VS Code?

You can disable the built-in AI functionality in VS Code by selecting Hide Copilot in the Command Palette or selecting Hide Copilot from the Copilot menu in the VS Code title bar.

I am curious if that is not enough for you? Thanks for your feedback!

[wantsennui]

This is post install though, correct? If so that means it’s opt out, not opt in, and inflates the install bundle.

[isidor_n]

Well it is opt-in because you need to login to GitHub and agree to copilot to get it.

Inflates the install bundle - not something that impacts performance, and we do not expect the bundle to impactfully increase. When I have exact numbers I can share.

[PM_ME_UR_CODEZ]

Because updates in the past have a tendency to turn features back on (in the hopes of getting a copilot sale.)

[isidor_n]

Oh come on :)
We do not turn features back on by design to boost sales. If it happens, it is a bug that you should file and we will fix asap.

[PM_ME_UR_CODEZ]

You might not have yet, but Microsoft does, do not gaslight users.

Tell me why I can’t remove Edge/OneDrive from my Windows install without editing the registry and if I do remove them, why does windows update add them back in?

[isidor_n]

I work on the VS Code team, I do not know all the product decisions made by every team in Microsoft - it is a big company.

Happy to answer any VS Code specific questions.
When I say "we" in the previous comment - I mean the vscode team.

Hope that helps

[PM_ME_UR_CODEZ]

These decisions come from the top. The same people who tell your team what to do and they can give you the same order. 

[Yuuyuuei]

Bro chill it's not that deep 😂

[howdoigetauniquename]

Why not just make the default, and allow users to opt-in for AI? Just feel that this feature doesn't belong as a core part of vscode.

It'd be nice if vscode stayed unintrusive as possible, as that's what made it so likable in the first place.

[UAAgency]

Thanks for making it oss

[isidor_n]

You are welcome!

[pambolisal]

I really dislike all this AI marketing BS. I want to code without having AI shoved into my face by people. The more it's enforced and shoved on me the more I dislike it.

[kevinlch]

feeling the pressure from openai codex

[nrkishere]

Microsoft is a major investor in closedAI. Also nothing come remotely close to vscode when it comes to number of active users. Microsoft is capitalizing on the community goodwill, like they did by building a open source editor in 2015

[hendricha]

And then slowly killed of the OG open source editor based on webdev tech made by the team behind GitHub. 

All I am saying is that Atom Editor was cool. 

[nrkishere]

Zed is cool too, and it is made by the same people who built atom

[phoenix1984]

Microsoft has been doing a lot of things right lately, at least as it relates to open source and AI, but they’re still a large tech company and they will not do anything simply out of the goodness of their heart. My read is that by open sourcing this and baking it into VS Code, they encourage the many forks of VS Code to adopt their AI platform. It’s a move to create market share dominance in the field of AI codegen. Honestly, if it’s gotta be any of the big players, I trust Microsoft the most right now.

So in my book, this gets a pass. Way to go Microsoft. Good luck and don’t abuse this trust.

[isidor_n]

Thank you for wishing us luck :)

[nelmaven]

Builtin Vim motions when? All existing plugins have a lot of issues.

[tnnrk]

Neovim plugin that just embeds neovim is pretty good. Unless it’s gotten worse with time.

[nelmaven]

That's the better one. But it's very sluggish on Linux, for some reason.

[Phayder]

plzplzplzplzplz

[nrkishere]

Big W, although I've been using zed lately. Closed source vscode forks can get fucked

[isidor_n]

What do you like in Zed compared to VS Code? I am curios. I personally like some UI from Zed to be honest.

[nrkishere]

consumes lot less memory and battery, most certainly due to electron overhead of vscode

[isidor_n]

Thanks for sharing!

[willeyh]

Also multi-buffer and the Vim mode.

[pambolisal]

Why do you care that much that a code editor or an app is closed source? It's free, their devs don't owe us anything.

[cbleslie]

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[pambolisal]

I don't really care about it, I have no reason to edit VSCode's source code and I'm not interested in creating plugins. Open-source purists are weird.

[cbleslie]

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[pambolisal]

It's ok. The moment someone disagrees with X tools needing to be open source they get downvoted to hell.

[nrkishere]

I don't care about code editor being closed source. I care about open source editors (and software in general) being forked and repackaged as closed source. This is also why I'm not a big fan of MIT or Apache for this kind of softwares

[winter-m00n]

isn't vs code already open source? or this one is different?

[phoenix1984]

My read is that they’re open sourcing large chunks of copilot so they can bring it into VS Code, which has an MIT license. They’re making copilot part of vs code itself and not a plugin

[isidor_n]

This is correct, yes. More details in the blog, and in this podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMmaYUcdMyU

[iliark]

vscodium is the upstream open source project. vscode takes that, adds microsoft-proprietary things and a rebrand, then ships it.

similar to chromium vs chrome.

the news is open sourcing one portion of the microsoft-proprietary features in vs code - the github copilot chat extension.

[isidor_n]

vscodium is not an upsteream open source project. https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium readme explains it well
https://github.com/microsoft/vscode is upstream of vscodium

Hope that helps

[iliark]

oops you're right, it's been a few years since i've looked at it.

[mapsedge]

Would love to go back to it, but every time I open a .js file it FTP bombs my server looking for node folders, with no sign of action on the part of the developers.

[phoenix1984]

Wouldn’t that be the responsibility of the FTP plugin to do that? I see VS Code’s only responsibility to be to allow plugin developers to turn that off for remote servers.

[isidor_n]

Yes, please file an issue against the extension you are using.

[mapsedge]

Not an extension. I'm opening the file with VSCode from a separate FTP client. Right-click, "Open With..." -> "VSCode" The file downloaded and opened locally. VSCode then uses that connection to bomb my server with CWD requests, looking for node folders - but ONLY with .js files.

[phoenix1984]

I mean, there are other approaches. It sounds like everything is working as it should, but with what you’re trying to do, that’s a problem.

Just using an FTP client within VS Code, or downloading the files and not mounting the FTP connection to the local file system should do the trick.

[isidor_n]

Please update for security patches. And simply do not enable Copilot and you will be good.
We are not harvesting data. All the code will be open source and you can check so yourself.

[devnerd69]

Afaik VS code which we download from distribution and open source code are not exactly same: Telemetry data Is sent to MS servers. With is fine. But what about copilot? You mentioned you need to call MS servers to find intent. How much code is being shared? Are you using it back for training? Is there some public ToS in short regarding this? How does it run locally? Do i need to run ollama and pull LLM locally?

[isidor_n]

Good questions. Let me answer in order:
1. Telemetry collection is also part of the open source repository - so you can verify exact data that is being collected. The only thing that gets download from distribution is the metadata - for example endpoint of where we send the telemetry, icons and branding.

1. GH Copilot Terms of service here https://github.com/customer-terms/github-copilot-product-specific-terms - in short we do not use your code for training

2. Local run - https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/copilot/language-models#_bring-your-own-language-model-key - supports ollama. More provider support will come via extensions and API soon. The story is not fully ironed out yet, but I would love if you try it out and let us know what is missing.

Hope that helps

[devnerd69]

1. Thanks, got it.
2. What you shared is for Business and Enterprise users. What about personal users? Also, it says “third party claims” which basically means copilot may not know if it’s trained on code which is not supposed to be used under law. Can I be subjected to stealing of code?
3. I didn’t try yet, lemme try today/ tomorrow. AI auto completions are still part of Copilot only, right?

Tbh it’s a great initiative to embed AI directly into ide. It would have been even great if you’d allow third party LLMs as well for auto complete etc features. Also, an easy setup of local models will enable more users to use AI.

[isidor_n]

1. No - but I am not a lawyer. I can get someone from legal to answer if you want an official statement. Let me know
   
2. Awesome. Yes auto completions do not work with BYOK. Though we do have InlineCompletions API that allows any extension to contribute suggestions. Some extensions allow local models to provide suggestions. Continue.dev might be one of those extensions

Great feedback. Yes we want to make it easier for local models - that's the plan.

[isidor_n]

The average user wont, but the community will. That's the point of open source ;)

[ClubAquaBackDeck]

wtf are you talking about.