Lets AI coding agents drive the Visual Studio debugger for native C and C++: breakpoints, stepping, memory, locals, crash dumps and CPU profiling, through a CLI and an MCP server.
BH Agent Debugger lets AI coding agents and scripts drive the Visual Studio debugger for native C and
C++ programs. It works with Visual Studio 2022 and Visual Studio 2026.
Use the Download button on this page to get the installer (bh_agent_debugger.msi), or get it
from the GitHub release.
The extension needs the broker service and command-line client that come with the installer, so it is
installed with the MSI rather than from Visual Studio's Extension Manager.
What an agent can do
Debug control: start debugging a solution (optionally with launch arguments), attach to a
process, stop, break, continue, step into, over and out, and wait for a break.
Breakpoints and traps: file and line breakpoints, and address or symbol traps.
Inspection: call stack, threads, registers, raw stack, memory, locals and modules.
Expression evaluation: side effects and function calls are blocked unless the agent asks for
them explicitly.
Crash dumps: open native x86 and x64 user-mode dumps read-only and inspect them with the same
commands.
CPU profiling: capture with Visual Studio's CPU Usage tool and analyze the capture offline:
hot functions, call tree, hot paths and source-line drill-down, using local PDBs only.
Several Visual Studio instances: each running instance is a separate target.
Agents and tools
An MCP server (bh_agent_debugger_cli mcp) for any MCP client.
The installer can set up Claude Code, Codex (Windows and WSL) and OpenCode for you: it adds the
skill and registers the MCP server. Hosts that are not installed are skipped.
A command-line client, bh_agent_debugger_cli, for scripts.
Install
Close every Visual Studio instance.
Download bh_agent_debugger.msi from this page or from the
latest release and run it.
It installs per user and does not need administrator rights.
Start Visual Studio and run bh_agent_debugger_cli doctor.
Requirements
Windows 10 or 11, x64.
Visual Studio 2022 (17.x) or 2026 (18.x), Community, Professional or Enterprise, with the C++
desktop development workload.
Native x64 or x86 debuggees.
Security
A connected agent can run code with your account's rights: debugging, launching programs and
evaluating expressions all do. All pipes are local and restricted to your user account; nothing
listens on the network. Connect only agents you trust and keep their approval prompts on. See
SECURITY.md.
