Implicit context handling in Copilot Chat

[snehilshah]

Does this issue occur when all extensions are disabled?: Yes

• VS Code Version: 1.101.0
• OS Version: Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS

Improvements for the implicit context changes for the copilot chat.

1. Current file selections are not included by default, there are many reasons when you would want the llm to only scope in the current function/block.
2. Even by using the shortcut mentioned Shift+Tab, Enter the context cannot be fine tuned with including specific lines automatically.
3. When you change a file the previous context (added by Shift+Tab, Enter) still remains in the list. Which also cannot be removed by Shift+Tab, Enter (it just opens that file).

Implicitly adding the current context (fine grained till line number) is a very good feature, and any other context (even the current file) can be easily added with the shortcut ctrl + /.

Suggestion to bring this feature back.

[bpasero]

cc @isidorn

[JPCodeCraft]

We need this back. I tried with implicit context but doesn't do it.

[roblourens]

Sorry for the confusion. First, in case this helps, you can easily set a keybinding to the "Add Selection to Chat" command by adding something like this your keybindings.json

{
  "key": "cmd+l",
  "command": "workbench.action.chat.attachSelection",
  "when": "editorTextFocus"
}

Also, you can use #selection to attach the selection.

Second, I assume you're using Ask mode? The ideal for me is that all interactions will be agentic in that Copilot will be aware of your ui state and able to read the file into context if necessary, as Agent mode is able to do today. But in the meantime before we have that in Ask mode, help me understand, what sort of solution would best help you?

• Just bring back the eyeball toggle in Ask mode
• Always attach the selection/file, possibly wasting tokens
• The suggested attachment could be the current selection, instead of the whole file
• Something else

[danwall]

My workflow here has also been affected in a negative way.

An example is that I'm working in a file, it could be a relatively long file and I want to open chat in edit mode to help me make some changes to a specific part.

I used to simply open chat (which may already be open on a new chat) and start asking for my changes, the current cursor position is taken into context (no text selected) and changes are suggested based on where my cursor was.

This behaviour is very similar to inline chat, except with the added benefit of having a full chat context for continued iteration on other parts of the file.

"Add Selection to Chat" is useful but another step and does not react to cursor movements for continued iteration. I need to remove the old one and add a new one which slows things down and can break the thought process of the job at hand.

#selection is only available if there is an actual selection, not just taking the current cursor position and similarly would need to be re-applied on cursor position change.

Ideally it would be great if there was an option to always have the current cursor position added to the context like it previously worked.

[snehilshah]

Hey @roblourens, yes this workflow is in ask mode only. In my ideal workflow implicitly adding the current selection to chat by default is really helpful (what #selection does, but do it by default).

• I can scope my problem to a specific function/block, allowing me to refer to the code using "this" and "here" in chat - which has become my habit now.

• As @danwall mentioned, when I don't select anything and move directly to chat, having lines near my cursor automatically added feels intuitive

• Unlike Agent mode, I use Ask mode for very specific questions (rudimentary e.g., in Go: "Are all errors handled correctly and returned in this function?")

• Without any context many times the response is "Without seeing the specific code, I can provide a general explanation of how ....", because I forgot to add the context to chat.

• When I add the whole file via Shift+Tab, Enter, responses become more generic instead of focusing on my specific area of interest

All in all, request to bring back the previous workflow of, automatically adding the current selection in chat as context(basically #selection), if nothing was selected, the current cursor position is the context(not sure how this was calculated).
The eyeball toggle does not have much relevance to this, the dotted outline is quite good.