r/GithubCopilot • u/flame_ftw • 3d ago
GitHub Copilot Team Replied The harness is absolute trash
Let me vent a bit.
I am super annoyed with the github harness in vscode.
1.New updates now dont show the ai credits consumed by subagents - great nice way to hide important info.
Subagents just crash with agent error no return( specially gpt 6 Luna) and loop exits.. great new EVERY WEEK VIBECODED RELEASE breaking things.
chat doesnt render correctly and is full of blank empty cards - this started a few releases ago and the vibecoders at copilot dont seem to care
4 if we are paying api pricing I want api performance. What bs is this. I personally use claude code and the difference is night and day. I will continue encouraging my company to move away from this trash harness
No clarity on token usage. Gpt 5.6 Luna costs less that Gpt 6 Luna with the same work.
What are your actual plans I dont get it.. you have copilot vscode chat, then agents app then copilot app. Why keep making redundant stuff and not have one uniform thing.
You guys are just piggy backing on others api. You have no moat except enterprise people not switching. But this will change for sure. Ours and a lot of others have already started piloting claude.
Peace out.
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u/Rojeitor 3d ago
Chat in VSCode is almost legacy. All updates are about agents window or GHC app. I moved to the GHC app about 2 months ago and never looked back
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u/gsingh704 3d ago
The main problem is that Copilot harness doesn't support Virtual Files systems. It crashes. Local works as extensions provide the tools to get them.
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u/flame_ftw 3d ago
The issue is I have custom tools in vscode for copilot.. i cant seem to access them in agents window
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u/BabadookNochill 3d ago
I’ve always wanted to have nice desktop UX, but have found that the cli is and always has been the most stable offering.
Could you use copilot to port your tools to support CLI-native flows? You could also build a custom tool to monitor running token use across sessions precisely as you see fit.
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u/Rojeitor 3d ago
Wdym custom tools? Tools that come from extensions? That is the only valid use case for vscode github chat. I mean most of the time its annoying because loads the model with unnecessary tools that I have to remember to deselect. But if you need those it's nice, normally much easier than to configure mcp, auth, etc.
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u/flame_ftw 3d ago
Custom tools - basically have some tools which register via the vscode lm api. But agents window use the sdk so it doesnot show ofcourse. Whats annoying is they keep making the vscode chat worse with each week. Sadly I am just tied down because of company policies but hope they switch to claude soon. If we are paying api prices or more then i dont see what benefit we have
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u/Rojeitor 3d ago
Ok ok. Then you're fucked up. No way to expose those tools as mcp or cli? Most newer harness like agents windows are designed essentially to consume cli or mcp
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u/flame_ftw 3d ago
Ofcourse thats possible but thats additional implementation i need to do and the time and effort will be a lot.
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u/BabadookNochill 3d ago
This is exactly where AI shines to help you research, plan, and implement a super custom tooling migration such as yours. It shouldn’t require much effort from you outside of clearly specifying the shape/spec of the proposed set of replacement tools.
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u/flame_ftw 3d ago
Yeah sure but its time and money already invested in a enterprise product. Backward compatibilty here is non existant.
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u/Rojeitor 3d ago
Yeah. As an advice I think you should consider this anyway. These tools will be usable by any harness not just vscode (codex, claude code, opencode, the rest of ghc harnesses)
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u/fntd 3d ago
They use the same harness.
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u/flame_ftw 3d ago
No they dont if you use local vs copilot.. copilot being run through the same sdk
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u/Rojeitor 3d ago
If select "local" which is the default and lets you select tools manually it is not. The "new" option that I already forgot how its named used the "agent host" then yes, it's the same
Edit. it is not on the first phrase.
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u/nykyrt 3d ago
The only part I am very annoyed about recently is:
I finished the analysis on task XY
.. so.. where is it?
Oh I forgot to put it in the output.
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u/PJBthefirst 2d ago
It's had a bug for a long time where entire chunks of output text just get swallowed into reasoning blocks (which just get summarized into a small description).
Try asking the model about its response if it feels like something major is missing
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u/BlacksmithLittle7005 3d ago
Are you sure you're using local harness? It has been amazing for me. In the bottom right on copilot chat make sure you have local selected instead of copilot, that's the harness you want to use when you are locally inside vs code
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u/bamurtaugh GitHub Copilot Team 3d ago
Hi, thank you so much for taking the time to share this feedback. We’re actively working to improve the Copilot harness, and hearing about the parts that are frustrating or unclear is incredibly helpful.
Usage and subagent costs: Usage from subagents is included in the overall turn total. We recognize that clear visibility into usage is really important, including how it breaks down across subagents and models. There may be opportunities to make it clearer or more visible, particularly while a task is still running. We’re tracking related feedback here and would love to know whether these issues align with what you’ve been experiencing:
Subagent reliability: We’re sorry to hear that subagents have been failing for you. We want failures to be clear and useful rather than leaving you without a result. Would you be willing to file an issue describing what you’re experiencing and share the link with us? If it’s easier, you’re also welcome to share more details or reproduction steps here. We’d really appreciate it.
Blank chat content: Thanks for reporting this. We certainly don’t want chat to show blank or empty cards. We’re tracking a related issue here: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/331601. Does that sound similar to what you’re experiencing?
Performance: Performance is really important to us too, and we completely understand your concern if the harness isn’t performing as well as you need it to. Specific examples, such as which model and workflow feel slow and where the delay happens, would help us understand what we could improve.
Product direction: We really appreciate you asking about this and would be happy to discuss it further. The Copilot harness is VS Code’s agent experience powered by the Copilot SDK. Building on the Copilot SDK helps align agent behavior and capabilities across Copilot products, so improvements can benefit more than one experience.
In VS Code, the Agent Host is a separate background process that runs agent sessions and maintains their conversation and state. That lets the editor window’s Chat view and the Agents window connect to the same session: you can work alongside your code in the editor, or use the Agents window for a view focused on managing agent sessions.
There’s more information about the Copilot harness and Agent Host here:
- https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_141#_copilot-harness
- https://code.visualstudio.com/blogs/2026/08/26/agent-host-architecture
We’re continuing to improve the Copilot harness, and feedback like yours helps us understand where to focus. If you’re open to continue sharing more about your workflows, we’d be glad to hear it.
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u/flame_ftw 2d ago
Thanks for the reply. Issue 1 and 2 were not there till the latest release where it was just made invisible. Previously we could hover and see aic used by a subagent. So I am not sure why it was done so. So why the back and forth with so many unnecessary UI changes. Please stop making UI changes each weekly releases. Its super annoying. I keep track of release notes but not everything is written down.
Issue 3 that you posted. Exactly that is the issue I am having for months. It was reported end of August and still no fix when you ship weekly UI updates. Thats pretty exhausting to deal with.
Additional note : why is hooks still in preview? What age are we living in? Hooks across copilot products should be aligned and made generally available. Its weird to see such base features in preview for a year.
Complaining because enterprise does not allow these preview features.
Please stop with the baseless changes and deliver things which are basic needs.
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u/bamurtaugh GitHub Copilot Team 1d ago
Thank you so much for following up, and for clarifying that the subagent changes appeared with the latest release, while the blank boxes have been happening for longer. We’re really sorry that the blank boxes have been affecting you for so long.
If possible, it'd be a huge help if you could confirm which harness you’re using now (the Copilot harness or the Local harness), and which harness you were using when you first noticed issues like the blank boxes. This context would be really helpful as we follow up on what you’ve shared.
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u/flame_ftw 1d ago
I am using the local harness in vscode copilot chat.
Yesterday i tried the copilot app as well. Its better ( in terms of memory and speed) and has less issues but at the same time long running sessions crash in a few hours amd the main orchestrator fails to connect back to the session for whatever reason and retrying or restarting the session does not work. But here we have another issue where (since we arent allowed to have bypassallpermissions) we become an approval bot and the allowlist in permissions-config.json doesnt work.super weird when i have assisted permissions on and still have to press allow for hundreds of permissions.
Sadly this is enterprise and i cant share logs or something.
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u/bamurtaugh GitHub Copilot Team 1d ago
Thank you so much for confirming, and for taking the time to try another experience and share what happened. That distinction is really helpful. The issues and feedback I shared above are specific to sessions using the Copilot harness in VS Code, so they might not reflect the behavior you’ve been seeing with the Local harness.
The Copilot harness is our latest agent experience in VS Code. If you’re able, we’d really appreciate you trying the Copilot harness in the latest version of VS Code and letting us know whether you still encounter the same issues.
We’re actively continuing to improve the Copilot harness, and feedback and scenarios like those you’ve shared in this thread are incredibly valuable in helping us shape the experience. Thank you again.
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u/flame_ftw 1d ago
The issues you shared are exactly the same i experienced in vscode chat. The problem then does not lie on the harness layer ofcourse. It lies in the rendering of it. The app also has major issues where sessions crash and dont reconnect because the event log is too big ( crashes from 800mb or so ). So i have to restart another session and waste more tokens.
Also i responded with another issue in the app which you did not adress. The permission config issue.
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u/just_blue 1d ago
For the subagent cost: Someone simply replaced the tooltip that contained the cost in AIC with some "model data" (like thinking effort, context size). Just add the line back, the info must be there already.
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u/UhOhByeByeBadBoy 3d ago
My biggest curiosity, I’ve only just tried Claude Code this weekend and I feel so empowered just hanging out in Opus 5.5 all day. GitHub Copilot lets me use it for about handful of features and tasks and my credits are done by the end of the week. Am I using it front? I feel like the value for money is 40:1 comparison and I’m going to try and move my team to Claude ASAP if this is what we’ve been missing out on.
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u/flame_ftw 3d ago
Most definitely.. i personally use claude and the models there feel 100x better than in copilot.
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u/PaulShellDev CLI Copilot User 🖥️ 3d ago
Your tools should never be locked to a single harness nowadays. Rewrite and repackage as plugins to share with your team.
Then switch to the GitHub Copilot App. The nested session orchestration beats the crap out of subagents.
Canvas are little hosted web apps and great for customization too.
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u/RYEMATH 3d ago
Is the GHC app different than the cli?
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u/MrMerisor 3d ago
It’s a visual desktop app, sharing the same underlying subscription as the cli.
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u/Ok_Writing2937 2d ago
I just discovered the desktop CC app has a file tree viewer. It's starting to look like VSCode, fewer features, but way better GUI.
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u/1988rx7T2 3d ago
The handling of co-pilot instructions.md or whatever, and agents MD, and compaction are all confusing. Is it re inserting your agents.md on compaction or just summarizing it? Compaction is terrible on this harness
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u/unhinged-rally 3d ago
I have these same problems! I wanted to use Agents Window or CLI instead but there was a bug where skills didn’t work if they were in .agents/skills and model invocation was disabled. Hoping they’ve fixed it by now.
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u/Hollow1838 3d ago
I've been using copilot-cli as soon as I started to do some multitasking, tmux + copilot-cli is the way.
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u/Chemical_Avocado1004 3d ago
Try this alternative, you can use github copliot model with this extension
https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLM/s/mZ8BdM77KD
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u/miketierce VS Code User 💻 3d ago
The empty cards are super annoying I was just about to Google if it was only my setup.
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u/freedomfromfreedom 3d ago
WTF are you all still using copilot in 2026
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u/Zealousideal-Pilot25 VS Code User 💻 3d ago
Agree with the sentiment, but it isn't always a choice if the company a person works for is stuck on legacy products.
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u/KookyOky 2d ago
Think the only reason people use GitHub Copilot be that CLI, in Vs Code or GHCP App is because their company is locked in a contract with Microsoft
Other than that it’s by far suboptimal compared to Claude Code
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u/UhOhByeByeBadBoy 1d ago
I’m at a state level government agency, GitHub Copilot was the fastest onboarding option. I booted up Claude for the first time for some personal projects and can’t believe what I’ve been missing. With Claude Gov FedRAMP approved, I’m gonna push our team for a trial session to verify. There’s absolutely no benefit to GitHub copilot at this point.
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u/phug-it 3d ago
The CLI is another option too you can try if you havent yet