VS Code Insiders Podcast Building agent memory for VS Code with Harald Kirschner
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Oct 13, 2025 
Harald Kirschner, a Program Manager on the VS Code team, dives into the exciting world of AI features and customization. He explains how custom instructions, prompts, and chat modes can enhance productivity. Harald discusses building agent memory as an extension, which simplifies workflow and keeps repositories tidy. With insights on proposed APIs for VS Code, he emphasizes the importance of tailored development environments and invites listeners to try his new extension while sharing feedback. A must-listen for developers interested in AI integration!
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Purpose Of Custom Instructions
- Custom instructions are workspace-level one to two page markdown files that describe a codebase for the LLM to avoid re-reading many files.
- They give the model baseline context about project structure, rules, and where to look for details.
Prompts As Reusable Workflows
- Prompts are reusable one-shot workflows you send as the user message to get consistent outputs.
- You refine prompts to encode best practices so everyone on the team gets repeatable results.
Chat Modes Are Persistent Personas
- Modes act as persistent agent personas or workflows, carried in the system prompt and not lost between messages.
- They can constrain tools and models and guide multi-step agent behavior more strictly than a single prompt.