Copilot agent can't read 'vscode-chat-response-resource' created by GitHub MCP server response

[henryrecker-pingidentity]

Started seeing this after updating to 1.113.0. The same workflow was working prior to the upgrade. The agent is trying to use the get_file_contents tool from the Github hosted MCP server to read a file from a repo. It gets a response, but the agent is unable to read the response.

• Copilot Chat Extension Version: 0.42.2
• VS Code Version: 1.113.0
• OS Version: Mac Tahoe 26.3
• Feature (e.g. agent/edit/ask mode): agent mode
• Selected model (e.g. GPT 4.1, Claude 3.7 Sonnet): GPT 5.3-Codex, Claude Opus 4.6
• Logs: From Agent Debug Logs:

mcp_github_get_file_contents
Success · 880ms
{
  "owner": "repoowner",
  "repo": "reponame",
  "path": "repopath/create-subscriptions.adoc,
  "ref": "refs/heads/main"
}
successfully downloaded text file (SHA: d54962587d1bee6551986a3e694eaddd2a4f8bd9)[application/vnd.code.resource-link: 355 bytes]

After the above there is a link to the downloaded file in the chat that I can click on and open without issue, so the MCP server is getting a response successfully, but when the agent tries to open it it fails.

Model Turn
panel/editAgent · gpt-5.3-codex · success · 4,944ms
Input tokens: 54,429
Output tokens: 183
Cached tokens: 54,144
Total tokens: 54,612
Sections (1)
[
  {
    "role": "assistant",
    "parts": [
      {
        "type": "tool_call",
        "id": "call_Li8XCgHq2AQXGflafLZQdmFm",
        "name": "read_file",
        "arguments": "{\"filePath\":\"vscode-chat-response-resource://7673636f64652d636861742d73657373696f6e3a2f2f6c6f63616c2f4e4752694f44566a4f5745744d7a67354d5330304e6d51774c546c695a6a51744f546c6c4e546b33597a63344e444177/tool/0eaa5040-78ff-4591-b03c-e421563d9107/1/create-subscriptions.adoc\",\"startLine\":1,\"endLine\":260}"
      }
    ]
  }
]

read_file
Error · 4ms
{
  "filePath": "vscode-chat-response-resource://7673636f64652d636861742d73657373696f6e3a2f2f6c6f63616c2f4e4752694f44566a4f5745744d7a67354d5330304e6d51774c546c695a6a51744f546c6c4e546b33597a63344e444177/tool/0eaa5040-78ff-4591-b03c-e421563d9107/1/create-subscriptions.adoc",
  "startLine": 1,
  "endLine": 260
}
ERROR: File vscode-chat-response-resource://7673636f64652d636861742d73657373696f6e3a2f2f6c6f63616c2f4e4752694f44566a4f5745744d7a67354d5330304e6d51774c546c695a6a51744f546c6c4e546b33597a63344e444177/tool/0eaa5040-78ff-4591-b03c-e421563d9107/1/create-subscriptions.adoc is outside of the workspace, and not open in an editor, and can't be read

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Use Github MCP (hosted, not docker) in agent mode to attempt to get full file contents from a git repo
2. Agent is unable to read the file contents returned, even though if I click on the file in chat I can open it successfully

[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 1.114.0. Please try upgrading to the latest version and checking whether this issue remains.

Happy Coding!

[henryrecker-pingidentity]

@vs-code-engineering I tried with 1.114.0 and encountered the same issue.

[mrdubr]

Same problem in 1.114.0 (Universal)
✅ GitHub MCP CAN download files - The mcp_github_get_file_contents tool successfully downloads the file from your repository (SHA: d76e4ae581540b7240bd0c42777d74f7a78b0193)

❌ Copilot CANNOT read the downloaded content - The file is stored in a special VS Code resource URI (vscode-chat-response-resource://...) that is outside the workspace and inaccessible to file reading tools

[jmalloc]

I'm having the same issue in v1.115.0.

GitHub MCP can download the file, but read_file cannot read the vscode-chat-response-resource:// URI.
If I click on the file in the chat history the agent can read the file content from the file tab (presumably) but this doesn't scale.

Version: 1.115.0
Commit: 41dd792b5e652393e7787322889ed5fdc58bd75b
Date: 2026-04-07T22:04:57Z
Electron: 39.8.5
ElectronBuildId: 13703022
Chromium: 142.0.7444.265
Node.js: 22.22.1
V8: 14.2.231.22-electron.0
OS: Darwin arm64 24.6.0

[swg0101]

Confirmed that I also have the same issue on v1.115.0

[karthicksndr]

I’m encountering the same issue on v1.114.0+.

The GitHub MCP is able to download the file, but read_file fails to read from the vscode-chat-response-resource:// URI.

This was working for me up until VS Code version 1.111.x.

[mikomaccw]

Same issue to me too. The get_file_contents tool is such an important tool. Would be great to see more attention to this issue.

[wrobtom]

Hello, any update on this? This is still problem on v1.117.0-insider

get_file_contents tool downloads the file and wraps it in a vscode-chat-response-resource:// URI, but read_file tool can only access that URI if the resource happens to be open in an editor tab