Visual Assist: Helping developers write better quality code, with less friction and more focus.

Visual Assist is a productivity extension for Visual Studio that helps developers read, navigate, refactor, check, and write C, C++, and C# code. It handles or simplifies the repetitive IDE work so you can stay focused on the parts of coding that matter.

VA adds, augments, and improves Visual Studio's navigation, refactoring, code inspection, highlighting, and code completion. It runs on its own C++ parser, built to understand code rather than compile it, so it keeps working in the large, legacy, macro-heavy, or half-written code where IntelliSense can slow down or lose track. If you work in Unreal Engine, game engines, simulation, embedded, or large enterprise C++, that's where Visual Assist earns its keep.

Visual Assist is one of the definitive plugins that conceptualized and shaped many of the features you now see in Visual Studio, and it keeps developing user-centric tools for productivity and usability.

Read more about the features and benefits provided by Visual Assist.

Main Features of using Visual Assist

• Be a faster developer with well-designed navigation features. VA reimagines how you navigate code with specially designed UI and context-aware features like GoTo Implementation, Find References, Find Symbols, and Open File in Solution.

• A parser built for real-world C++. Visual Assist runs its own parser in parallel with Visual Studio's. It's designed for large solutions and keeps resolving symbols in code that doesn't compile yet, so navigation and refactoring keep working while you're mid-edit. It understands modern C++ through C++20, including modules.

• Catch problems across the whole solution. Code inspections flag unsafe, outdated, and bug-prone C++ and offer fixes you can apply one at a time or in bulk. They're rule-based, so the same code gives the same result on every run.

• Do more with fewer clicks. Refactorings and code completion cut down the steps between an idea and working code. Auto-complete code, generate missing pieces, and get logical suggestions based on where you are.

• Specialized support for game development projects. The plugin is designed with Unreal and Unity development in mind, from navigation improvements to understanding engine-specific syntax and file types.

Latest release highlights

Visual Assist 2026.5 runs code inspections across your entire solution and adds VA Agent, a chat window that brings Claude Code, Codex, or a local model into Visual Studio. Recent releases also added full support for Visual Studio 2026, faster initial parsing on large codebases, and support for HLSL shaders and CUDA.

Learn more about the latest changes in Visual Assist here.

• Project-wide code inspections. Run Visual Assist's 400+ clang-tidy-based checks across selected projects or your whole solution. Apply fixes to a single finding, a whole file, or everything at once.

• VA Agent. Use Claude Code or Codex (with your own subscription) or the local Gemma 4 model to assist your coding. Sign in with the Claude or ChatGPT plan you already have; no API keys needed. Use the new docked chat window in Ask Mode to explore and understand code, or allow agents to edit the file directly.

• Support for Visual Studio 2026. Designed to complement VS 2026 with fully compatible refactoring, navigation, symbol understanding, and productivity shortcuts. Visual Assist supports every Visual Studio version back to 2005.

• Faster initial parsing. Improved parsing and indexing make Visual Assist more responsive when you first open very large codebases.

• HLSL, shader, and CUDA files. Navigation, syntax highlighting, and coloring work in HLSL, Unreal's USH/USF files, custom shader files, and CUDA (.cu) files.

Productivity tool for C/C++ and C# with support for UE4 & UE5

Visual Assist fills gaps in the coding experience of Microsoft Visual Studio, making a great IDE a phenomenal one. Add navigation and syntax highlighting for specialized languages and applications not natively supported by the IDE.

· Unreal Engine Specific Tooling

Make your game development epic with integrated Unreal Engine support (including UE5) and features that run as fast as your code. Save time, see more, and work smarter.

· Navigation

Move around your code efficiently and easily — to any file, method, symbol, or symbol reference in your projects and solutions. Navigate with commands like Find Symbol in Solution, Open File in Solution, Find References, and GoTo Related.

Go to related locations of any symbol, including base classes, derived classes, constructors, and members.

Navigate throughout a solution via VA Hashtags in comments. VA Hashtags are user-defined, shared bookmarks that move with code. You can also use the feature as a task list.

Navigate among VA Hashtags using a dedicated tool window or local context menu.

· Refactoring

Reduce the complexity of your code, improve its readability, and make it extensible without changing its external behavior. Refactor with commands like Rename, Encapsulate Field, Introduce Variable, and Change Signature. Rename, Change Signature, and Encapsulate Field show their current settings as quick toggles, so you can check and change them without leaving the dialog.

Use Extract Method to create a new method from an existing block of code. It also changes the original code to invoke the new method.

· Code Generation

Generate code quickly with commands like Add Missing Case Statements, Implement Interface / Virtual Methods, and Create from Usage.

Create methods, variables, and enums without leaving your place in code.

· Code Inspections

Find and fix problems before they turn into bugs. Code inspections flag unsafe code, outdated idioms, readability and performance issues, bug-prone patterns, and unnecessary includes, on the current file or the whole solution.

· Coding Assistance

Write code with assistance that doesn't get in your way. Select using enhanced member listboxes, surround selections with code snippets, quickly grow selections on logical boundaries, and accept suggestions that appear before you type.

Suggestions include relevant bits of nearby code.

· Code Understanding

Make sense of complex or unfamiliar code with an assortment of informative fields, highlights that update as you move about code, and enhanced syntax coloring.

VA provides timely and contextual hints with tool windows, browsers, and fields. Get information more often, and with more thorough content to help you make sense of code.

When you want a plain-language explanation, ask VA Agent in Ask Mode. Name a symbol or paste a snippet, and the agent you choose (Claude Code, Codex, or the local model) explains what it does.

Visual Assist makes complex code understandable at a glance by enhancing syntax coloring, subtly highlighting the current symbol and its references, adding tooltips with type and signature info, and providing new UI such as the VA Navigation Bar, VA File Outline, and more. Hover over a macro to see VA's and Clang's expansions side by side.

· Debug Assistance

Use debugger enhancements in Visual Assist to shorten the time required to debug native C/C++. Browse PDBs efficiently, resolve symbols in text-only call stacks, and use the VA Step Filter to step over trusted methods in argument lists.

· Tool Windows

Access tool windows for a hierarchy of header files, a list of recently visited places, and an outline of the current file that allows drag-and-drop to rearrange its contents. VA Outline provides an overview of your code, simplifying navigation and giving you an accessible view of essential information.

· VA Code Snippets

Expand frequently typed segments of code with a more powerful version of the like-named feature in the IDE. Expand symbols from the current context, prompt for user input, and edit VA Snippets in a custom editor.

· Code Correction

Correct typing mistakes as you make them, including incorrect symbol case, invalid pointer notation, and spelling errors in strings and comments.

Ready to try it? Download Visual Assist — 30-day free trial. Fully featured.