Debugging, but Without the Drama (A Visual Studio 2026 Story) - Visual Studio Blog (original) (raw)
It starts the way these things always start.
A red build. A failing test. And that quiet, sinking feeling of “This worked yesterday.”
Meet Sam. Sam’s not a junior, not a rockstar, just a solid developer who’s shipped enough code to know that bugs don’t care how confident you feel on Monday morning.
That test failure does not offer much help at all. There are no clear steps to reproduce the issue. The exception message seems familiar in a vague way. But it does not prove useful right then. Out of habit Sam hits F5. He notices something small yet pretty important about it.
The debugger launches faster than before. No long pause, no breaking his flow. Sam gets straight into debugging, and that small improvement already feels like a win.
The Exception Knows More Than It Used To
The app crashes. Sam opens the exception details. Normally, he’d read the error message, scroll through the stack trace, which shows the chain of function calls that led to the crash and start guessing what went wrong.
This time, things feel different. Exception Assistance ‘s Copilot analysis looked at the whole repository, not just the file in front of Sam. It checks past bugs, old pull requests, and even fixes from months ago. It notices a similar error that happened after a validation tweak, flags the code paths that might have been hit, and points to places where that odd value could have slipped in.
If Sam wants a different angle, he can pick any model in Copilot Chat to analyze the exception the way that fits the problem. And for trickier, nested, or chained errors, Copilot may decide it needs more context and offer to dig deeper. Sam can continue with the deeper analysis to get a more context-driven, accurate understanding of what went wrong, without losing control of the investigation
What used to take hours now feels like a conversation with a teammate who knows the history of your code and points you exactly where you need to look.
Want to see this in action?
Inline Values: When If-Statements Stop Lying and Values Appear Where You Need Them
Sam steps through the code and lands on a conditional that should be true but is now showing false.
Normally, you’d hover over every variable, checking them one by one but now? The result is right there. Inline in editor. The condition shows how it was evaluated.
Sam hovers and chooses Analyze with Copilot. Instead of just seeing “false,” Copilot breaks the condition apart sub-expression by sub expression showing exactly which part failed and how it affected the outcome. No stepping. No breakpoint. Just reasoning where the decision happened.
As Sam moves on, he notices something else that clicks:
- Method parameters? Inline.
- Loop variables? Inline.
- Return values? Inline, where they’re used, not buried inside a function call.
One way keeps returning a value that feels wrong. Sam doesn’t step into it. Doesn’t add watches. He just hovers, asks Copilot to analyze the value, and instantly sees an explanation grounded in runtime behavior and the surrounding code.
It doesn’t replace DataTips or visualizers; they’re still there when Sam needs to dig deeper. But most of the time, the answer he’s looking for is already right in front of him.
Want to see this in action?
When a Test Fails, and You Don’t Debug Alone
Later that day, another test failed. Different feature. Same frustration. Sam right-clicks the test and selects Debug with Copilot.
The Debugger Agent takes over. It looks at the test, its code, and recent changes. Then it makes a guess, applies a fix, runs the test, adjusts, and tries again. Sam watches. Not hands-off, but without the usual busy work. When it’s done, there’s a clear summary of what has changed and why. Sam reviews it, nods, and commits.
This isn’t giving up control. It’s cutting out the repetitive stuff so Sam can focus on the important decisions.
Want to see this in action?
The Calm at the End of Debugging
By the end of the day, Sam notices something important.
The bugs weren’t easy. The code wasn’t simple. But understand them? That came faster.
Visual Studio 2026 doesn’t make debugging magic. It makes it feel like a conversation between Sam, his code, his history, and tools that get the context. By the end of the day, Sam closes the debugger feeling focused, not worn down.
These improvements in Visual Studio 2026 are the first steps toward a smoother, calmer, more intuitive debugging experience, less time guessing, and more time understanding. There’s a lot more coming, and your feedback is crucial. Tell us what works, what doesn’t, and where debugging still trips you up.
Happy Debugging. 🙂
Author
Harshada Hole is a Product Manager on the Visual Studio Debugging and Profiling Team, dedicated to enhancing the diagnostics experience by making it more productive and efficient for developers.