chat.tools.global.autoApprove: true causes ask_questions tool calls to be skipped in agent mode

[emrgvn]

• Copilot Chat Extension Version: 0.37.9
• VS Code Version: 1.109.4
• OS Version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.2263
• Feature: agent mode
• Selected model: GPT-5.2 (also reproducible with other models)
• Logs: N/A

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Add "chat.tools.global.autoApprove": true to your settings.json
2. Start a conversation with the agent mode.
3. Observe that when the agent attempts to call the ask_questions tool, the call is immediately skipped — the question is never presented to the user.
4. Set "chat.tools.global.autoApprove": false and repeat. The agent now correctly presents the questions to the user.

Expected Behavior

The chat.tools.global.autoApprove setting should auto-approve non-interactive tool calls (file edits, terminal commands, etc.), but interactive/user-facing tools like ask_questions should still be presented to the user. Skipping a question tool defeats its purpose — there is no meaningful action to "approve," the tool's entire function is to collect user input.

Actual Behavior

When chat.tools.global.autoApprove is set to true, the ask_questions tool call is auto-approved/skipped without ever showing the question to the user. The agent logs show "Skipped" for the question step and then proceeds as if the user provided no answer, breaking the intended agent workflow.

[vs-code-engineering]

Thanks for creating this issue! It looks like you may be using an old version of VS Code; the latest stable release is 1.110.0. Please try upgrading to the latest version and checking whether this issue remains.

Happy Coding!

[Wolfe1]

This has been fixed in vscode insiders so its should be in standard vscode eventually: #298204