Support custom context metadata for agentic chat

[kaje94]

Request: allow extensions to contribute extra context for agentic chat.

• When webview panels are open, VS Code could automatically include metadata from them (needs to be passed as additional properties when creating the panel) in the agentic chat context.

For example, when the Github pull request panel is open, if someone asks something about the pull request, the agent can assume that the question is related to the pull request

• Even when webviews are closed, let extensions contribute custom metadata (project-type, config, etc.) as context.

For example, even when no panels are open, status-bar items (e.g. “Python 3.10” or “Node v18.9.0”) could be included as chat context, so if the user asks “how do I fix this language error?”, the agent can assume the correct runtime/version.

Suggestion: extend the chat context so extensions can register providers for webviews, and other custom metadata as context.

[alefragnani]

Hi @kaje94 ,

I'm not sure the Chat Participants would handle the use case you are describing, but maybe worth a try. Maybe abstracting the context inside an MCP would do the trick as well.

Either way, since you are suggesting a new feature/API, I would suggest you to open an issue in the VS Code repo (https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues) itself, so the VS Code team could evaluate. This discussions forum is intended for extension development only for now.

Hope this helps