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make chat thinking stream screen reader accessible#287640

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meganrogge merged 5 commits intomainfrom
gentle-ocelot
Jan 14, 2026
Merged

make chat thinking stream screen reader accessible#287640
meganrogge merged 5 commits intomainfrom
gentle-ocelot

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@meganrogge meganrogge commented Jan 13, 2026

fixes #286777

Adds a ChatThinkingAccessibleView, which can be accessed via a command. If no thinking is present, we alert to indicate that. Otherwise, we open the accessible view with the current thinking content.

Uses shift+alt+f2 to align with and extend the existing alt+f2 one.

  • to discuss with screen reader users: should we clear the thinking content once thinking has stopped or leave it around until the next thinking stream comes in?

Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings January 13, 2026 22:01
@meganrogge meganrogge marked this pull request as draft January 13, 2026 22:01
@meganrogge meganrogge added this to the January 2026 milestone Jan 13, 2026
@meganrogge meganrogge self-assigned this Jan 13, 2026
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Pull request overview

This PR adds accessibility support for "thinking" content in chat responses. It creates a new accessible view that allows screen reader users to access the AI's thinking process during chat interactions.

Changes:

  • New ChatThinkingAccessibleView class to provide accessible view support for thinking content
  • Registration of the new accessible view in the contribution registry
  • Added ChatThinking enum value to AccessibleViewProviderId

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 3 out of 3 changed files in this pull request and generated no comments.

File Description
src/vs/workbench/contrib/chat/browser/accessibility/chatThinkingAccessibleView.ts New accessible view implementation that extracts and presents thinking content from chat responses
src/vs/workbench/contrib/chat/browser/chat.contribution.ts Imports and registers the new ChatThinkingAccessibleView
src/vs/platform/accessibility/browser/accessibleView.ts Adds ChatThinking provider ID to the enum

@meganrogge meganrogge requested a review from justschen January 14, 2026 16:53
@meganrogge meganrogge marked this pull request as ready for review January 14, 2026 16:53
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@justschen not familiar with the thinking streaming, so pls lmk if i'm doing something wrong or if there's a better way to get the content 😄

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Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 6 out of 6 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

Comment thread src/vs/workbench/contrib/chat/browser/accessibility/chatThinkingAccessibleView.ts Outdated
Comment thread src/vs/workbench/contrib/chat/browser/actions/chatAccessibilityActions.ts Outdated
Comment thread src/vs/workbench/contrib/chat/browser/accessibility/chatThinkingAccessibleView.ts Outdated
@meganrogge meganrogge enabled auto-merge (squash) January 14, 2026 17:45
@meganrogge meganrogge changed the title add accessibility help for thinking make chat thinking stream screen reader accessible Jan 14, 2026
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thanks!!

@meganrogge meganrogge merged commit b41e884 into main Jan 14, 2026
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@meganrogge meganrogge deleted the gentle-ocelot branch January 14, 2026 19:26
@vs-code-engineering vs-code-engineering bot locked and limited conversation to collaborators Feb 28, 2026
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Screen reader users have no access to thinking stream

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