GitHub Copilot: Chat Session Hierarchy in VS Code
GitHub CopilotVS Code 1.136 introduces a session hierarchy for Copilot and Claude chats in the Agents window, replacing the flat chat list with a tree that nests related conversations under their parent session. Each row in the hierarchy shows its own title, status, and pending approvals, so a developer can tell at a glance which chat needs attention without opening every one individually. When an agent delegates work to a new chat, that chat is placed near the session that spawned it and carries a source label such as "Sent from another chat." The change targets a scaling problem GitHub identified as agents increasingly split work across multiple parallel chats.
Key Takeaways
- Session hierarchy in the Agents window nests related Copilot and Claude chats beneath their parent session instead of listing them flat.
- Each chat row shows its own title, status, and pending approvals, letting developers spot which conversation needs attention at a glance.
- Chats in the tree can be expanded, collapsed, renamed, moved, or deleted directly, without a separate management panel.
- When an agent delegates work to a new chat, that chat is nested near its source and labeled with where it came from.
- The change responds to a scaling problem: as agents split work across more parallel chats, a flat session list stops being usable.
- It shipped in VS Code 1.136 alongside experimental multi-root workspace support and the new Agent Merge feature.
Sources & Mentions
2 external resources covering this update
From Flat List to Tree
As GitHub Copilot's agent features have matured, a single feature or pull request can now spawn several related chats: a main session plus one or more child chats an agent delegates work to. Until VS Code 1.136, all of these appeared in one undifferentiated, flat session list in the Agents window, making it increasingly hard to tell which chats belonged together or which ones actually needed a developer's input.
VS Code 1.136 replaces that flat list with a session hierarchy. Child chats now appear nested beneath their parent session, so a developer can treat an entire pull request, feature, or investigation as a single tree of related conversations rather than a scattered pile of unrelated entries.
What Each Row Shows
Every chat row in the hierarchy displays its own title, current status, and any pending approvals, which means a developer scanning the tree can immediately spot which conversation is waiting on a decision or an approval without clicking into each one. The hierarchy can be expanded or collapsed, and individual chats can be opened, renamed, moved, or deleted directly from the tree view, without needing to switch to a separate management panel.
Delegated Work Gets Traced
When an agent delegates part of its work to a new chat, for example spinning off a subtask into its own session, that new chat is placed close to the session that created it, and it carries a source link back to its origin, such as "Sent by another session" or "Sent from another chat." This makes it possible to follow a chain of delegated work back to where it started, rather than losing track of how a given chat came to exist.
Why It Matters
GitHub frames this change as a direct response to a scaling problem: as agents delegate more of their own work across multiple chats, a flat list of sessions becomes unmanageable. The hierarchy is a foundational organizational change to the Agents window rather than a single flashy feature, but it is the kind of change that becomes more valuable the more a developer relies on Copilot's agent mode for parallel or multi-part work.