Desktop/system notification when VS Code copilot is done with the current prompt.

[OsamuBlack]

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I would love a feature (or extension) that sends a desktop/system notification when GitHub Copilot Chat finishes generating its response.
This would help users stay focused on other tasks without needing to keep watching the chat panel.

It should work with:

• Ask
• Edit
• Agent mode
• Inline chat prompts

A setting to enable/disable notifications or its settings
Shorkey for toggling notifications
Support for clicking the notifications and go to the source editor. (icing on cake if it works with multiple editors)

[Akash1134]

Hi @OsamuBlack,

Thank you for suggesting this desktop/system notification feature for GitHub Copilot in VS Code. This is a thoughtful idea that could genuinely improve workflow efficiency by allowing users to multitask more effectively while waiting for Copilot's responses.

I appreciate how thoroughly you've outlined the feature requirements:

• Notifications for multiple Copilot operations (Ask, Edit, Agent mode, Inline chat)
• Configurable settings for enabling/disabling notifications
• Shortcut key for toggling notifications
• Support for clicking notifications to navigate to the source editor

Your suggestion aligns well with our goals of enhancing developer productivity and creating a seamless coding experience. We're continuously looking for ways to improve the Copilot experience based on community feedback like yours.

I've shared this feature request with our product team for consideration in our future development roadmap. While I can't make specific commitments about implementation timelines, I want you to know that we value these kinds of user-centered improvement ideas.

In the meantime, I'm curious if others in the community would find this feature useful as well. If anyone else reading this discussion would benefit from desktop notifications for completed Copilot responses, please add your reactions or comments to help us gauge interest.

Thanks again for taking the time to share your suggestion with us.

[StevenFrostwick]

Hey @Akash1134

I would also find this an extremely valuable feature. My team is embarking on a pretty major AI-driven project, and the Agent can take anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes or more to complete each task. It is not possible to simply stare at the IDE for all of this time, especially as the day goes on, so of course our minds wander a little. But when the Agent is finished we want to return to the IDE immediately, rather than being distracted reading an article or something like that.

It's also sometimes the case that the Agent requires manual user intervention to perform a task such as moving or removing files, and this should also present a system notification to the user (me).

So a big +1 on this feature request from me and my team.

Cheers.

[adriancuadrado]

It's also sometimes the case that the Agent requires manual user intervention

I was about to create a feature request to get notified when VSCode needs your permission to run a command or to keep generating its response because it's been working for a while. It's not exactly what you describe when you say "task such as moving or removing files" but it's essentially the same.

In my case, I'm not sure if you can make Github Copilot stop asking if it's ok to keep generating a response, but I'd rather confirm each time just in case it ended in some sort of endless loop like when it tries to fix an issue that happens over and over again because it tries to fix it without actually making any changes (not that this happened to me lately or anything but it's the best example I could think of).

[sriteja777]

+1 to this especially for the agent mode

[binotaliu]

While it might not be what exactly OP wanted, but I found a simple way to workaround with this.
You can click on "..." button on the right-top of chat panel, and select "Open Chat in New Window", or open command palette and type "Chat: Open Chat in New Window."
This will turn your current chat session in a new window in compact mode. And you can pin this window on top by click on the "Turn On Always on Top" button in the title bar of the window.
By doing so, you don't need to stare at the whole editor window to wait for the task to finish. And you can always look at this small chat window to know the progress of Copilot. Once the task is finished, you can turn back the chat window into side panel and continue to work in the whole editor.

[webenadam]

Please please please. i need it so much.

[DandanITman]

Roo code, Augment & Kilo code all have ways to do this, they could be used to mirror the idea. Its very helpful to get a ping when user input is needed. Gets a bit annoying slo hopeful there will be ways to adjust the notification to diferent sounds but its better than nothing,

[avrebarra]

+1 this would improve dev working ways so much

[JSunRae]

I have a work around by having in the Copilot instructions to run a script that sends me a telegram text when done and which agent. But it does not always run it when it finishes.

[webenadam]

nice idea! but yes the instructions are rarley used by copilot in my excprience. that's really anoyng.

[apexskier]

I'd also find this very valuable, as well as notifying when it asks for permissions to execute a command. I'd also appreciate the ability to configure it to foreground with window instead of notifying, but not sure if that would be too interruptive.

[adriancuadrado]

As long as a setting to turn on/off something that people might or might not like, it should be ok. If it is too interruptive, just turn off whichever setting would be created for that.

[wbopan]

I have the same question. I have made an extension to solve this: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=wenbopan.vscode-terminal-osc-notifier . It correctly parses notification OSC sequence in vscode integrated terminal and send either system notification or vscode notification.

[webenadam]

They already added this feature in one of the latest releases. i see people still commenting here...

[apexskier]

Do you have any details (release notes, instructions to enable)? I can't find this.

[webenadam]

https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_103#_os-notification-on-user-action

[apexskier]

Thanks! I just had notifications disabled for VS Code in general, which is why I wasn't seeing them. 🤦.

[lastmjs]

Are you sure a notification is sent when an AI chat/agent completes its task? Or does it only send a notification when user input is needed?

[webenadam]

both. but it might be only when vscode is not focused. i’m not sure.

[apexskier]

Only when not focused, in my experience

[SadmanYasar]

I'd love to have the notification integrated with Github mobile app so that it sends a push notification to my phone when the Agent completes a task or requests me to run a command. This way I can be away from desktop and still operate Copilot from Github mobile.

[tetj]

Claude Dispatch has it hehe

[torsknod2]

This would be really helpful.
I have regularly the issue that an agent does not monitor something, e.g. a system service and/ or emulator, any more or misses context, which leads to wrong actions and thus waste of tokens/ AI credits.
With that agents would be much more autonomous and thus better to be used in parallel.