Bug fix: Fix skill load regression

[vijayupadya]

Fixes a regression introduced in #302508 where _autoAttachInstructions was silently skipped for all chat sessions without an explicit chatSessions extension point contribution (including the default local chat).

The check if (!contribution?.autoAttachReferences) treated undefined (no contribution registered) disabled all instruction, skill, agent, and slash command loading via ComputeAutomaticInstructions.collect(). Only hook loading was unaffected since getHooks() is called independently from chatServiceImpl.ts.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Fixes a regression in the chat widget where automatic instruction/skill loading was being skipped when there was no chatSessions extension point contribution (e.g., default/local chat), by only honoring autoAttachReferences when it is explicitly set to false.

Changes:

• Adjust _autoAttachInstructions to treat autoAttachReferences: false as the only skip condition (instead of treating undefined as disabled).

Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)

src/vs/workbench/contrib/chat/browser/widget/chatWidget.ts:2783

• Consider adding a regression test that exercises this gate (local/default sessions with no chatSessions contribution should still run automatic instruction/skill loading; only an explicit autoAttachReferences: false should skip). There are already unit tests for ComputeAutomaticInstructions, but this bug was in the widget-level condition, so without a widget-level test it’s easy to regress again.

	private async _autoAttachInstructions({ attachedContext }: IChatRequestInputOptions): Promise<void> {
		const contribution = this._lockedAgent ? this.chatSessionsService.getChatSessionContribution(this._lockedAgent.id) : undefined;
		if (contribution?.autoAttachReferences === false) {
			this.logService.debug(`ChatWidget#_autoAttachInstructions: skipped, autoAttachReferences is disabled`);
			return;
		}
		this.logService.debug(`ChatWidget#_autoAttachInstructions: prompt files are always enabled`);

[TylerLeonhardt]

No. this should be opt-in.