Start Screen for Visual Studio

Download this extension from the Visual Studio Marketplace or get the latest CI build from Open VSIX Gallery.

Your first five seconds in Visual Studio should feel fast. Start Screen replaces the default launch experience with a clean, modern dashboard that gets you into code immediately - no clicking through menus, no waiting.

Get to work in one click

Open a recent solution, create a new project, open a project or folder, clone a repo, or attach and reattach to a process - all from a single, focused screen. The action bar puts every common workflow front and center so you never have to dig through File or Debug menus again.

Your recent projects, supercharged

Start Screen doesn't just list your recent files. It understands how you work:

Find anything instantly. Type a few characters and the search filter narrows your list in real time. Pin the projects you care about most so they always float to the top.

See your Git status at a glance. Every repo shows its current branch, ahead/behind counts, uncommitted changes, and the last commit time - all loaded in the background so the UI stays snappy. Hover for the full picture, or spot a detached HEAD before you accidentally commit to nowhere.

Stay organized. Projects are grouped by when you last touched them - Today, This week, This month - so yesterday's prototype doesn't bury this morning's deadline.

Right-click for power moves. Open the containing folder, launch a terminal, pull the latest Git changes, copy the path, pin, unpin, or remove - all from a context menu with keyboard shortcuts.

Developer news, built right in

A curated feed of engineering news from the Visual Studio Blog, .NET Blog, and more lives right next to your project list. It refreshes in the background and caches locally, so it's always ready and never slows you down.

Want different sources? Drop your own RSS or Atom feeds into a simple JSON file and Start Screen picks them up automatically - no restart needed.

%USERPROFILE%\.vs\StartScreen\newsfeeds.json

{
  "name": "My Custom Feed",
  "url": "https://example.com/feed.xml",
  "enabled": true
}

Full JSON schema validation is included so you get IntelliSense while editing.

YouTube video feed

The latest videos from the Visual Studio YouTube channel are shown alongside the news feed. Each video displays a thumbnail, title, and publish date - videos published in the last three days get a "NEW" badge so you never miss fresh content.

The feed is cached locally and refreshes automatically every four hours. Click the refresh button next to the header to force an update at any time.

Drag and drop

Drop a solution, project, or folder from File Explorer directly onto the Start Screen to open it. You can also drag pinned items to reorder them - a visual indicator shows exactly where the item will land.

Dev Hub

The Dev Hub panel shows your open pull requests, assigned issues, and recent CI runs from GitHub and Azure DevOps - right next to your project list. Data loads in the background and is cached locally so the UI stays responsive.

Custom search query (GitHub)

By default the Dev Hub shows issues and PRs that "involve" your GitHub account. Click the gear icon next to the Dev Hub header to enter a custom GitHub search query. The extension prepends is:issue or is:pr automatically, so you only need to provide the filtering part.

Use the {login} placeholder to reference the authenticated username.

Example - show open issues across multiple orgs:

state:open archived:false sort:updated-desc user:madskristensen org:VsixCommunity org:ligershark

Example - only issues assigned to you:

state:open assignee:{login}

Example - issues in a single org:

state:open org:dotnet

Leave the field empty to restore the default behavior (involves:{login}).

The custom query applies to the Issues and Pull Requests tabs. The CI Runs tab always fetches from your recently pushed repositories and is not affected by the query.

The custom search query setting only applies to GitHub. Azure DevOps uses dedicated REST APIs for each repository and is not affected.

Tip of the day

Every time Visual Studio starts, a short productivity tip appears at the bottom of the Start Screen. The tips rotate daily and cover navigation shortcuts, editing tricks, refactoring commands, and other features you might not know about. No configuration required - just glance down and learn something new.

Have a tip to share? Open an issue with your suggestion or submit a pull request directly to tips.txt.

Suggested extensions

Right next to the Tip of the Day, Start Screen showcases a curated extension from the Visual Studio Marketplace. The suggestion rotates daily and highlights free, open-source extensions that enhance your development workflow.

Extensions you've already installed show an "Installed" badge. Extensions you haven't tried yet display an "Install" link that takes you straight to the Marketplace page.

Want to suggest an extension? Submit a pull request to extensions.json. We're looking for extensions that are:

• Free
• Open source (with a GitHub repository link)
• Support both ARM and x86 architectures
• Compatible with Visual Studio 2022+

Keyboard-first design

Every part of Start Screen is navigable without a mouse.

Open the Start Screen any time from File > Start Screen or press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Backspace.

Recent solutions / folders

Dev Hub

News feed

YouTube videos

Action bar

Looks right at home

Start Screen inherits your Visual Studio theme - Light, Dark, Blue, or whatever you're running. No jarring color mismatches, no extra configuration. It just blends in.

Install it

1. Grab it from the Visual Studio Marketplace.
2. Restart Visual Studio.
3. That's it. Start Screen is already waiting for you.

It works out of the box. Feed preferences and pinned items are persisted automatically.

Get involved

Found a bug? Have an idea? Head to the issue tracker - pull requests are always welcome.