Endgame Plan for 1.68.x

[ndoschek]

Planned Release Date: Thursday, January 29, 2026
Coordinating issue for the 1.68.x release

Below is the list of blocking issues that must be resolved before the release can be finalized, as well as a list of nice-to-have fixes or enhancements that may be included if time permits.

Required for release

• Serialize and restore ParsedChatRequest in chat sessions #16736
• update MCP SDK to v1.25.1 and migrate to zod v4 #16780
• Fix uses of newValue #16846
• Store persistent chat sessions in the workspace by default #16847
• feat(ai-chat): add mode selection for Coder and Architect agents #16860
• fix(ai-hugging-face): upgrade SDK to v4.x for new API endpoint (#16739) #16864
• [merge editor] Fix Mark as Handled having no effect in some cases #16858
• [merge editor] Fix unexpectedly marking merge conflict as handled #16867
• [merge editor] Fix manual resolution not detected in some cases #16869
• [vscode] API evolution (public and proposed) and nls update to 1.108.0 #16871
• [vscode] update built-in theme and color definitions #16873
• Prevent implicit execution of MCP configurations in untrusted workspaces #16872
• feat: add Action Button (Commit Button) support to scm #16803
• fix(ai-hugging-face): use patchLanguageModel to update model status #16885
• Improve computation of workspace trust for saved/multi-root workspaces #16893
• writeFileContent tool fails with "Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'id')" #16899
• feat(ai-core): Add Agent Skills support #16810
• Add CreateSkill agent #16903
• feat(ai): add GitHub Copilot language model integration #16841
• Add todo tool function #16859

Nice to have

• AppTester improvements #16898
• feat: add ShellExecutionTool for AI agents #16878
• fix: respect agentId in delegateToAgent when prompt contains @mentions #16855
• feat(debug): improve debug console with output persistence and text filtering #16882
• fix: restore enhanced tab preview for all widgets #16895
• feat: enhance chat accessibility (focus commands and ARIA) #16835

Pushed to next

• feat(editor): add formatter status bar with smart configuration managment #16829
• feat(ai-history): show prompt variant ID and edit state in history #16876
• fix: improve tool call parameters rendering #16844
• feat(ai-chat): add automatic chat session summarization for long conversations #16742

[sdirix]

Agent skills and todo tool are in the finishing stretches, we should be able to bring them in

[ndoschek]

Great, thanks Stefan! I'll move them up then 👍

[ndoschek]

All mandatory PRs are merged now, we will start with the release shortly.

[jfaltermeier]

The 1.68.0 release has completed, thank you to everyone that participated and contributed!