▤Work Items11
Hierarchical treeWork items render as the real ADO hierarchy — Epic → Feature → User Story → Task — with a parent-chain walk, so nesting survives even when parents belong to someone else (hierarchy-context rows tagged “· context”).
View mode toggleOne tree with a visible header: My Work Items / All Work Items / Unassigned — click to switch, remembered per workspace.
Filtering & searchFilter the tree by state, type, or text search with smart parent visibility — collapsed parents stay visible when a child matches.
Take Ownership / ReassignContext-menu actions gated per item, available in every view mode; selected items show a green badge and can be deselected.
Full detail viewRight-click → Show Full Details opens a formatted panel in the editor with the item's full content.
Task draft editorWhen the AI calls create_work_item, an editable markdown tab opens for review before anything is created — markdown is converted to HTML for proper ADO rendering.
Generate tasks from stories/generate-tasks has the AI analyze a user story and draft child tasks — with duplicate prevention against existing children.
Project binding & stateWorkspace-to-ADO project binding prevents working items from the wrong project; /status, /comment, /assign and /undo drive the active item.
Rich-text imagesScreenshots inside Description, Acceptance Criteria, Repro Steps and comments are fetched with your PAT and inlined as data: URLs — no more broken images in the detail panel (capped at 10 images / 2 MB each / 8 MB total per field).
Assignment cuesEvery item shows who owns it — blue person = assigned to you, orange = someone else, grey = unassigned — with the type in the row description and the assignee on hover.
Batch work-item readsget_work_item accepts an ids array — fetch up to 20 work items in ONE call (details batch-fetched, discussion threads loaded in parallel) instead of N round-trips.
💬AI Chat & Modes17
Any LLM, one chatOpenAI-compatible APIs (OpenRouter, Ollama, LM Studio…) and Anthropic — bring your own key and model.
Chat / Plan / Act / YOLOClick-to-switch tool modes: Chat (ask + approve), Plan (read-only), Act (auto-approve with allowlist), YOLO (full autonomy) — also cycled from the Status Panel.
Agentic tool loopTool calling with an agentic loop, mode-aware system prompts (role, tools, guidelines, environment) and a configurable tool budget per turn.
Parallel tool callsIndependent tool calls run concurrently and re-order back to call order; same-file edits serialize through a per-file mutation queue. Mixed batches stay fast too — consent-free calls execute in parallel while approval-gated ones run sequentially, so read-only work never waits on your click.
Batched editsedit_file accepts an edits[] array — several disjoint changes in one call, each verified and applied in order.
Batched terminal commandsrun_terminal_command accepts a commands array — several commands in ONE call, each still checked for shell operators and the Act-mode allowlist, outputs concatenated under $ command headers with a single consent card.
search_files grep toolRegex search across the workspace with path:line hits, per-line truncation, workspace confinement and result caps.
Live thinking & tool cardsThe AI's reasoning streams into a 💭 block; each tool call appears as a live card — running… → completed/error — and persists as a collapsible record in the final message.
Privacy togglesHide tool calls entirely (subtle “…” only) and toggle AI thinking on/off — enforced across every streaming path.
AI choice detectionWhen the AI offers options they render as clickable buttons; a fenced ```choice block is the primary path, with regex and an optional cheap-model fallback.
In-chat confirmation cardsTask start, mode switch and every consent prompt render as styled cards inside the chat — destructive operations use danger styling.
Send Selection / File to ChatRight-click editor selection or an Explorer file to insert it into the chat — selections as fenced code, files as attachment chips.
Slash commands/pick, /delegate, /generate-tasks, /new-project, /skills, /remember, /clear-sessions… with autocomplete and categorized /help.
Working indicatorStatus-bar spinner with live detail (“thinking…”, “tool: edit_file”) — visible even when the chat view is hidden.
Truncated-response guardIf a reply hits the output token limit, tool calls fail with “re-issue” instead of executing possibly-truncated arguments.
Active editor contextThe file you're editing is auto-injected into every chat turn — deduplicated by file/version, oversized selections capped, no copy-paste required.
AGENTS.md in chatThe chat model reads and honors an AGENTS.md at the workspace root on demand — parity with agent handoffs, zero cost when absent.
🤖Agents & Worktrees13
External agent orchestrationDelegate to Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Hermes, Pi, DeepSeek Harness (dsh) and more — each declared by binary, supported modes and CLI arguments, with a details panel.
DeepSeek Harness (dsh)First-class agent support — auto-detected via dsh --version and delegated through the headless profile (prints the final answer, exits 0 on success). Available from chat, /delegate, the work-item context menu and the delegate_to_agent tool.
Worktree isolationEvery delegated run gets its own git worktree under .ado-code/worktrees/ — concurrent agents can never collide on branches.
Worktrees viewDedicated sidebar tree with per-worktree details: run status, agent, dirty/clean files, last commit, ahead/behind — plus Open in Terminal/Explorer, Remove, Show Changes and Show Agent Output.
Reopen agent outputFinished runs keep a ↗ Reopen button and right-click → Show Agent Output — the summary panel is never permanently lost.
Run history & progressRecent Runs (last 10) in the Status Panel with status icons and timestamps; agent progress streams in the chat thread with a live elapsed clock, or into the editor area as a full panel.
Parent delegationDelegating a parent item runs its whole subtree in ONE worktree — the agent gets a numbered delivery checklist and must sign off with a ## Delivery Report (DONE / BLOCKED / INCOMPLETE).
Auto-complete childrenWith adoCode.agents.autoCompleteChildren, done children transition to their terminal state and the parent closes when all are done — partial success leaves it open with a comment.
AI merge flowThe assistant commits, pushes and opens the ADO PR itself (commit_worktree → push_worktree → create_pull_request), and can resolve merge conflicts (resolve_pr_conflicts) then re-push until the PR is clean.
GuardrailsNever force-pushes, refuses protected branches (main/master), refuses failed runs, blocks concurrent runs on the same item (parent/child included), and warns on stale branches.
Auto-reviewGit diffs are reviewed by the LLM on completion with a merge recommendation; AGENTS.md context is injected into every agent handoff.
Clean Up After MergeRemoves a merged run's worktree and deletes its branch — only when the PR is actually merged — from the view or as an auto-offer.
Summary panelCompletion summaries open in a styled HTML panel with metadata and duration; batch cleanup removes all completed worktrees at once.
⑂Git Workflow5
Branch on pickupAuto-creates feature/ADO-<id>-<slug> branches when a task starts (slugged from the work item title).
Changelog on completionUpdates CHANGELOG.md when a task finishes, with optional auto-commit and posting the entry back to ADO as a comment.
PR on doneOffers to push and open a PR via gh when a task completes; protected-branch checks keep the AI honest.
Worktree diff viewerShow Changes opens the VS Code diff editor for worktree files before you commit.
Safety checksWarns on branch switches with uncommitted changes; refuses to silently discard dirty worktree state (offers Commit & Push, then Remove).
🧠Memory6
User memoryAI remembers your preferences across all sessions via /remember and /forget.
Workspace memoryProject conventions in .ado-code/memory/ — conventions, architecture, gotchas, custom — kept out of git/Docker via auto-ignore.
Agent hooksagent.before / agent.after keys run shell commands around every agent invocation (e.g. lint before, tests after), streaming output to the run panel.
Memory injectionUser + workspace memory is injected into the chat system prompt and into every external-agent handoff (“ADO Code Memory — instructions you MUST honor”).
Search & transferFuzzy QuickPick search across all memory entries; move entries between user and workspace scope.
Import / exportExport memories to JSON; import with merge or replace — memory survives reinstallations.
🧩MCP & Skills7
MCP serversModel Context Protocol support for external tool servers — configure in the UI, right-click to disconnect/reconnect/view details.
Skill catalogBrowse, install and manage reusable AI skills — 10+ built-in (Code Review, Documentation, Testing, Refactoring, Security Audit, Performance Profiler, Deployment Checklist, Database Schema Review, Accessibility Audit) with search and enable/disable.
AI skill executionThe AI can discover and run enabled skills mid-conversation via execute_skill; “Execute in Chat” injects the skill prompt and triggers the LLM.
Skill importBring your own skills from JSON, SKILL.md (YAML frontmatter + markdown) or .tar.gz/.zip archives — they persist across restarts.
Skill registriesBrowse community skills from remote TSV registries (slug<TAB>url<TAB>description) — registry skills are badge-marked and imported on install.
Project creation wizardMulti-step wizard for 9 templates — Node.js (TS/JS), Python, React, Next.js, Laravel, .NET Web API/Console, Empty. Creates projects anywhere: the open workspace folder (blank directories included) is used automatically or you pick one; ADO integration creates the work item in your active project, template option defaults pre-fill, the chosen initial branch is honored and invalid project names are rejected up front (/new-project).
File checkpointsAuto-save before AI edits, restore on demand — a safety net for autonomous runs.
✦Model Intelligence & Context8
Capability detectionVision and tool-calling support inferred per model — image attach is disabled for non-vision models, and models without tools get a persistent warning. Three layers: per-model overrides > live gateway data > name heuristic.
Capability overridesadoCode.llm.capabilityOverrides declares vision/tool support per model id when auto-detection is wrong — edited as structured rows in the Configuration page.
Dynamic context windowContext size auto-detected from /models (Ollama n_ctx, OpenRouter context_length…) — live data overrides the built-in table (27 models, 128k default).
Context managementPriority-based truncation replaces a naive turn cutoff; content-aware token counting (code ~3.5, prose ~4.5 chars/token); conversation auto-condenses at 75% via LLM summarization.
Native token countingStatus bar uses the provider's own tokenizer (Anthropic count_tokens; OpenAI-compatible usage.prompt_tokens) with local estimates as fallback — forced on for Anthropic, and the count includes the current system prompt.
Per-mode modelsAdvanced mode assigns different models and reasoning effort (low/medium/high) per mode — { "inline": "gpt-4o", "act": "o3" }.
Token optimizationTool results are capped to a token budget and compacted after the model has seen them; plan mode sends only read-only tool schemas.
Understanding cacheA durable, fingerprinted cache in .ado-code/understanding/ holds repo facts, the selected work item and prior-session knowledge — injected into every chat session and every delegated-agent prompt. Invalidates on git HEAD/branch or config change; the LLM repo summary regenerates async (adoCode.understanding.autoSummarize).
⚙Configuration & UX8
Configuration pageSettings grouped into sidebar categories — Connection, AI & Modes, Permissions, Workflow, Integrations — each with a setting-count badge; Advanced toggle gates per-mode models, capability overrides, choice detection and native token counting.
Focused wizard viewsOpening the Configuration page, the project wizard or first-run setup collapses the sibling sidebar views so the wizard gets the full view container — they are restored when it closes, and views you had hidden yourself stay hidden. The chat kebab’s “Configuration…” now opens the in-app Configuration page instead of VS Code’s native settings.
Consent systemRead-only commands can auto-approve after a configurable timer (default 20s); tool auto-approve accepts wildcard patterns (read_*, get_*, edit_file); Act-mode terminal allowlist supports git *, npm run *.
SessionsAuto-create on first message, /resume to continue, per-project retention caps, and /clear-sessions / “Delete All Sessions” to start completely fresh — persistence keeps only the last 25 message pairs so restores stay slim.
Keyboard shortcutsCtrl+Shift+M (cycle mode), Ctrl+Shift+/ (search memories), Ctrl+Alt+R (refresh status).
Update changelogAfter a version change, a one-time notification offers the new version's changelog in a styled webview panel.
Workspace scaffoldingNew-project wizard generates code, AGENTS.md and git init prompts; workspace-to-ADO binding keeps you in the right project.
DiagnosticsTree expansion counts, raw System.Parent samples and per-refresh tree shapes are logged to Output → ADO Code — a flat tree is instantly diagnosable.
