VS Code's Omni Chat Has Confusing UX
12 posts in the last 60 days, all from GitHub.
“Problem There is no way to start a new chat (fresh conversation) with an agent in the board UI, nor to close/archive an existing one. The "Chat with an agent" picker always resolves to the user's existing chat with that agent ( GET /api/companies/{companyId}/chats/{agentId}…”
“Problem The Agents window sessions list is hard to scan. Custom groups, workspace sections, Pinned, and Chats all render as the same grey text, so with a lot of sessions it reads as a wall of grey and groups don't stand out. To work around this today, I create empty custom…”
“In the Agents window, when a pinned session has multiple chats, the hierarchy is displayed messily: The line connecting the session to its chats is broken/disconnected instead of forming a continuous connector. The blue vertical line on the far left looks out of place /…”
Users are experiencing confusion regarding the functionality and purpose of VS Code's 'Omni Chat' feature, which is being rebranded as 'Agent Bar'. Concerns exist about its distinction from other chat functionalities and a desire for clearer communication.
SOURCES (17)
“Copilot Chat Extension Version: Built in Agent Host (Code OSS from source, main at 58afa23a1cb) VS Code Version: Code OSS dev build OS Version: macOS Feature: Agents window, workspaceless chat (no folder), Copilot provider Selected model: Claude Sonnet 5.5; also seen with HydraFusion (gpt 5.6…”
“Problem There is no way to start a new chat (fresh conversation) with an agent in the board UI, nor to close/archive an existing one. The "Chat with an agent" picker always resolves to the user's existing chat with that agent ( GET /api/companies/{companyId}/chats/{agentId} ensure semantics), and a new conversation is only created when none exists yet. Consequences: Context accumulates indefinitely in a single per user, per agent chat — answer quality degrades and token cost grows over time. The”
“Problem The Agents window sessions list is hard to scan. Custom groups, workspace sections, Pinned, and Chats all render as the same grey text, so with a lot of sessions it reads as a wall of grey and groups don't stand out. To work around this today, I create empty custom groups named ===================== ENG , ===== PRIV , and ===== MISC as visual dividers between engineering, personal, and miscellaneous work. Browsers already solve both problems: Colored tab groups: a solid colored header, a”
“After creating a workspaceless chat in the Agents window, there is no way to create a workspace based chat from the same window. Steps to reproduce 1. Open the Agents window without a folder or workspace. 2. Create a workspaceless chat. 3. Click New at the top of the session bar. 4. Try to create a workspace based chat. Expected: Clicking New provides a way to select a folder or workspace and create a workspace based chat. Actual: No workspace selection is available, and the new chat is another”
“Hide repository/worktree configuration controls when composing a new chat inside an existing Agents Window session. Verification: 1. Open an existing workspace backed session in the Agents Window. 2. Create a new chat within that session. 3. Verify the composer does not show repository, branch, or worktree configuration controls. 4. Verify the composer remains centered and visually consistent with the New Session experience. 5. Send a prompt and verify the new chat uses the existing session work”
And allow selecting which repo as the first quickpick step
“I'd love a way to right click on a session and see an 'attach to chat' button. I want to reference a previous session in my current one (i'm going to end up saying "look for the chat where we did X") <img width="1132" height="744" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user attachments/assets/bf9b7010 50fb 43c2 a2aa d840f7573ccf" /”
“Testing 333433 Created a new chat as described in the TPI The chat bubble indicator at the end is not vertically centered <img width="270" height="41" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user attachments/assets/f3dcacdd 0d7a 4e8f 9c90 b06c79ba5a06" /”
“In the Agents window, when a pinned session has multiple chats, the hierarchy is displayed messily: The line connecting the session to its chats is broken/disconnected instead of forming a continuous connector. The blue vertical line on the far left looks out of place / disconnected from the rest of the layout. The icon sizes are inconsistent between the pinned icon, the chevron, and the worktree name. Overall this makes the pinned session hierarchy look messy and unpolished. <img width="768" he”
“1. Open Agents Window 2. Create a session and send a prompt with Copilot Harness, wait for completion 3. Create a quick chat and wait for completion 4. Ensure the quick chat is in focus 5. Exit VS Code 6. Restart VS Code 7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 a couple of times, eventually the Chat Panel will be empty or the wrong chat is focused (instead of the previously/last focused quick chat )”
“Summary OmniCopilot works extremely well in the standard VS Code Copilot Chat experience. OmniRoute models appear correctly in: Copilot Chat model selector Copilot Chat Agent Mode Language Models Manager However, OmniRoute models do not appear in the new standalone VS Code Agents Window model selector. Environment VS Code: [version] OmniCopilot: [version] OmniRoute: [version] OS: [Windows/macOS/Linux] Current Behavior When using the standalone Agents Window: 1. Open Agents Window 2. Create a new”
“A few team members have expressed confusion about what Omni is vs. any other chat. All chats should be multi session aware, while this is a session independent surface for interacting with the whole agent system. The Agents window is where you inspect and manage agent sessions; this surface provides lightweight, persistent access to them, especially through voice. I think some UX tweaks and a rename can help clarify this: Rename Omni Chat → Agent Bar, which better communicates that it’s an inter”
“Reported by @Yoyokrazy Looks like quick chats when in the primary sidebar were meant to render smaller and with less detail. Now that automations is using the same component, it looks awkward with quick chats next to workspace chats. <img width="621" height="1468" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user attachments/assets/fac7212f 4d0f 46a1 acdf 8a1a85dc5a3c" /”
“Description Regular workbench windows fail to instantiate the shared chat context contribution during startup. This reproduced in three separate workbench windows from the same recent Insiders session. Log As a result, chat.contextContributions is not created in affected regular workbench windows. The Agents window from the same Insiders session did not log this error. (Written by Copilot)”
“Does this issue occur when all extensions are disabled?: Yes VS Code Version: 1.132.0 (from sources) OS Version: macOS 26.5.2 Steps to Reproduce: 1. In the Agents window, run an automation that creates a workspace less session (for example a scheduled "Daily PR changelog" workflow). Alternatively, create a normal quick chat and reload the window. 2. Look at the sessions sidebar. Expected: the session is grouped under the always visible "Chats" section. Actual: "Chats" reads "No chats", and the s”
“Summary I am seeing repeated context pollution between VS Code Copilot Chat Agent sessions. A follow up prompt sent in one session can pick up the active file/context from another session and then edit the wrong file. In this minimal repro, I created page 01.html in one session and page 02.html in another session. Then I sent a follow up message, Add footer. , in the first session. The conversation history for that session was about page 01.html , but the request sent to the model included edito”