Visual Studio Code releases major updates once a month, and right on schedule, version 1.109 is now rolling out to desktop platforms.It's the continuation of Microsoft's push for making VS Code "the home for multi-agent development," but there are some non-AI improvements as well.The January 2026 update, also known as version 1.109, is now rolling out to Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Don't worry, you didn't time travel—the updates are named after the month they were developed and tested, not the month they are released.There's no February 2026 release until next month.First, there are many improvements to AI chats and inline code suggestions.
If you use an Anthropic Claude model for chat and code assistance, you can now see the model's reasoning process in real time, as seen below.Interactive mermaid diagrams are also now supported in chat responses, and the chat input area has a new 'context window' popup to see how your tokens are being used across messages, files, instructions, and other categories.When it's time for your AI agent to run terminal commands, Visual Studio Code has a few new safety mechanisms.
Inline code in the terminal for Python, Node, and Ruby code now has syntax highlighting, so you can more easily read the code.The working directory and written description are also shown for each command.Terminal sessions embedded in AI chat windows are also now fully interactive.
If a script or other tool is running that requires user input, you can now click inside the terminal and type responses if needed.Other new features include a language models editor, native Claude Agent support, and support for MCP Apps.Moving on from the AI-focused improvements, this release has new experimental VS Code Light and VS Code Dark themes.
Microsoft says they are designed to "increase focus and bring a sense of elevation and lightness to the UI, through the use of shadows and transparency." They're not enabled by default yet.When compared to the current default themes, the new experimental designs don't have a bright blue status bar, and there's less of a distinction in background colors between the main editor and side panels.There's also a hint of frosted glass (or Liquid Glass, for you Apple folks) in elements like the Command Palette.
I'm not a huge fan of the all-white or all-black color scheme, so I'll stick to the Solarized Light and Solarized Dark themes.Visual Studio Code also has more terminal improvements in this release.The Kitty keyboard protocol is now supported, so you can use more modifiers than just Alt and Ctrl (and several of them at once).
This fixes many issues with keyboard input in terminal sessions, like CLI apps using Shift+Enter shortcuts.Even though Visual Studio Code still works on Windows 10, terminal sessions will no longer work on versions before Windows 10 version 1809 (the Fall 2018 update), because Microsoft has removed the winpty terminal backend.Most PCs on that Windows version should be able to upgrade to a later release, if Windows 11 is not an option.
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You can download Visual Studio Code from the official website.If you already have it installed, go to Help > Check for Updates (Linux and Windows) or Code > Check for Updates (macOS) to get the new version.Source: Visual Studio Code
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