Copilot in Visual Studio Gets Custom Agents, MCP Governance & Profiling AI — March Update
GitHub's March update for Copilot in Visual Studio 2026 is one of its most substantive releases yet, with a raft of features that push the integration from smart autocomplete firmly into the territory of an autonomous engineering collaborator. The headlining addition is custom agents: teams can now define agents as .agent.md files committed directly to their repo, complete with workspace awareness, MCP server connections, and model selection. Alongside that, GitHub introduced agent skills — reusable instruction sets that Copilot auto-discovers — and an enterprise MCP governance layer that lets organizations manage MCP server allowlists through GitHub policy rather than individual developer settings.
The update also extends Copilot's reach into performance engineering. A new Profile with Copilot feature automates CPU and memory analysis from Test Explorer, while PerfTips powered by the Profiler Agent surface inline optimization suggestions during debug sessions. A new find_symbol tool gives agents language-aware navigation across C++, C#, Razor, TypeScript, and LSP-compatible languages — meaning agents can reason about your codebase's structure rather than pattern-matching on text alone. The .agent.md pattern is particularly worth watching: it is a way to bake team-specific coding norms and domain context directly into the repository, making Copilot progressively smarter as the project evolves.