VS Code 1.136 Ships the Agent Host Protocol, an Open Interface for Third-Party Agent Harnesses

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Visual Studio Code 1.136 moves AI agents into a dedicated Agent Host process separate from the extension host, so sessions survive window closures and multiple windows can attach to one session. Microsoft is publishing the Agent Host Protocol (AHP) as an open spec, letting third-party harnesses including the Copilot SDK and the Claude Agent SDK plug into a unified interface. The release also adds remote agent execution over SSH and dev tunnels, multi-root workspace support, and a preview Agent Merge feature that drives a pull request to green by addressing review feedback, fixing conflicts and rerunning workflows.