Azure DevOps PR — VS Code Extension

Review Azure DevOps pull requests directly inside VS Code. Browse PR files, view inline comments with suggestion diffs, reply, resolve threads, and see comments in their original context — all without leaving your editor.

Features

Pull Request Browser

• All Open PRs — browse all active pull requests in the repository
• Created By Me — filter to PRs you authored
• Waiting for My Review — see PRs assigned to you for review, grouped by your vote status (No vote yet, Approved, Waiting for author, etc.)
• Review destination — click the review action or double-click a PR, then choose the current repository, the reusable detached review worktree, or a no-checkout snapshot review
• Author display — PR author's first name shown alongside the PR number
• Delete Branch — remove the local branch after review from the Active PR sidebar

Active Pull Request View

When you're on a branch with an open PR, or when you select Review Without Checkout for any PR, the extension shows:

• File Changes — folder tree of changed files with change type labels (Add, Edit, Delete, Rename)
• Reviewed checkboxes — tick files and folders as reviewed; folder ticks recursively mark all children; state persists per-PR
• Commits — list of commits in the PR
• Comment Threads — inline and PR-level comments attached to each file

Review Without Checkout

Choose Review Without Checkout from the Review Pull Request picker to review a PR without switching branches or creating a worktree:

• Fetches the PR source and target commits into extension-owned Git refs
• Leaves the working tree, index, current branch, HEAD, and ordinary local branches unchanged
• Shows exact commit-to-commit diffs in read-only virtual documents
• Supports inline comments, drafts, replies, thread status changes, votes, reviewed-file checkboxes, suggestions, and AI review
• Remains pinned in the current VS Code window until you select another review or run Stop No-Checkout Review
• Refresh fetches the latest source and target commits while preserving the local checkout

Git object data and refs under .git are updated by the fetch. The selected no-checkout review is not restored after reloading VS Code.

You can also run Review Pull Request from URL without opening a folder or cloning the repository. For repository-free and external-repository reviews, the extension retrieves only the pull request's changed paths and selected source/comparison revisions through Azure DevOps APIs. It resolves all file versions in one batch request and downloads their unique blobs in one ZIP request; repository size does not affect the number of files downloaded.

For any active pull request, including a standard checkout or review worktree, select Show Iterations directly below the Review Mode toggle to choose one or more updates. Iterations are ordered newest first, with Base shown last as the common commit between the source and target branches. Selecting iteration 3 alone compares iteration 3 with iteration 2; selecting iterations 2 through 4 compares iteration 4 with iteration 1. If selected iterations contain gaps, the intermediate iterations are included automatically; selecting none falls back to the latest iteration. The Files tree, the currently open diff, and new comment metadata all follow the selected range. Iteration diffs use immutable Azure DevOps content and do not modify the current checkout or worktree.

File diffs are server-authoritative in every review mode. Opening a diff from a standard checkout or review worktree loads the pull request's immutable source and common-base revisions through Azure DevOps, so an outdated local main/master, remote-tracking branch, or PR branch does not alter the displayed review. The checkout remains unchanged and available for supported AI and fix actions.

Inline Comments

• Comments appear as inline annotations on the exact lines they reference
• Suggestion diffs are rendered as rich - / + diffs showing the proposed change
• Reply to existing threads directly from the editor
• New comments — click the + gutter icon on any PR file to start a new thread
• Draft comments — click "Save as Draft" to save comments locally without posting to Azure DevOps; drafts appear in both the Comments panel and sidebar tree under their respective files; edit and update drafts before publishing; works for new comments and replies on existing threads
• Draft persistence — enable persistDraftComments in settings to preserve drafts across VS Code restarts
• Thread status — Resolve, Won't Fix, Close, or Reactivate threads from inline buttons
• Non-disruptive updates — posting a comment or reply updates threads incrementally without resetting collapsed/expanded state

Review Mode

A togglable review mode keeps comments out of your way when you're not reviewing:

• OFF (default) — no inline comments, no + gutter icons, no distractions
• ON — full comment UI enabled
• Toggle via the status bar ($(eye-closed) Review / $(eye) Reviewing) or the tree view title button
• A comment filter (Active / All) lets you focus on unresolved threads or see everything
• Review mode state persists across VS Code restarts (per-workspace)

View Original Context

When code has changed since a comment was made, click the $(git-compare) button in the comment thread title bar to open a diff showing the file exactly as it was at the time the comment was created:

• Uses the PR iteration's source and target commit SHAs for an accurate historical diff
• Places the comment (with fully rendered suggestion diffs) at its original line position
• Handles file renames and line tracking across iterations

Diff Views

• File diff — compare any changed file against the target branch and either the working copy or the exact fetched PR source commit
• Supports Add, Delete, Edit, and Rename change types
• Git ref content is fetched via git show and cached for performance

PR Detail Panel

• Webview showing PR metadata: title, description, author, reviewers with vote status, labels, work items, merge status, and auto-complete info
• Review Pull Request button to choose a current-repository, worktree, or no-checkout review from the detail panel
• Direct link to the PR on Azure DevOps

AI Assistant (@azdo-pr)

A Copilot Chat participant that helps resolve PR comments and review code:

• /fix — analyze a comment thread and suggest a code fix, a reply, or both
• /explain — explain what a comment is asking for
• /review — full AI code review of all changed files with inline draft comments
• /review-quick — high-level summary of PR changes and key concerns
• Review Lenses — every Review with Copilot run starts by choosing a focused review style: General, Bugs, Security, Architecture, Performance, or one of your custom lenses
• Context-aware review scope — when your working tree is dirty or has unpushed commits, a QuickPick lets you choose exactly what to review: staged changes, unstaged changes, all uncommitted changes, unpushed commits only, or everything vs the remote target
• Apply Suggestion button — appears when the AI (or an AzDO suggestion block) proposes a code change; applying requires a current-repository or worktree checkout because it edits local files
• Post Reply button — post an AI-drafted reply directly to Azure DevOps; the reply is prefilled as an editable inline comment so you can review and edit it in context before posting
• Uses workspace tools for checked-out reviews and commit-backed read/search tools for no-checkout reviews
• Honors Copilot instruction files — automatically reads .github/copilot-instructions.md, **/.instructions.md, and .copilot/ directory contents before responding, so your repo-level and directory-scoped coding guidelines are respected
• Customizable comment-resolution and quick-review prompts via settings (vscode-pr-azdo.prompts.*)

Review Lenses

A review lens controls how Copilot inspects a change, independently from the review scope that controls which local changes are included:

• General — balanced correctness, security, reliability, performance, and maintainability review
• Bugs — logic errors, edge cases, races, invalid assumptions, and broken failure paths
• Security — trust boundaries, authorization, injection, secrets, and data exposure
• Architecture — ownership, coupling, contracts, extensibility, and maintainability
• Performance — complexity, repeated work, allocations, I/O, caching, and scalability

Choose Create New Lens... in the lens picker to create a reusable custom lens. Custom lenses are Markdown files stored in the extension's global storage and are available in every workspace. Use the Edit and Delete buttons beside a custom lens, or run Azure DevOps PR: Manage Review Lenses from the Command Palette.

Existing values from the deprecated vscode-pr-azdo.prompts.review setting are imported once as a Migrated Review custom lens. The extension always combines lens instructions with its structured output protocol, so custom lenses should describe review priorities rather than repeat the response format.

Subfolder Workspace Support

• Works correctly when VS Code is opened on a subfolder of the git repository
• All file resolution (diffs, comments, AI context) uses the git repo root, not the workspace folder

Git Worktree Support

• Works correctly with git worktrees — checkout, comments, diffs, and AI review all target the correct worktree directory
• Automatically detects which repository contains the Azure DevOps remote, rather than assuming repositories[0]
• In multi-root workspaces with both a main checkout and worktrees, operations target the matched repository
• Every checkout prompts for either the current repository or one reusable detached review worktree, so you can choose differently for each PR
• The default review path is ../${repo}.worktrees/review, resolved from the primary repository root; customize it with vscode-pr-azdo.reviewWorktreePath
• Switching PRs reuses a clean review worktree without checking out the PR branch; a dirty review worktree is never replaced automatically
• The review worktree opens in a separate VS Code window, and reviewed-file checkboxes remain scoped to each PR

Requirements

• VS Code 1.110.0 or later
• Git — the VS Code built-in Git extension must be active
• A local clone of an Azure DevOps Git repository (supports dev.azure.com and visualstudio.com remotes, HTTPS and SSH)

Authentication

The extension uses Entra ID (Azure AD) authentication via VS Code's built-in Microsoft authentication provider. Sign in via the Command Palette or the welcome view prompt.

Multi-tenant accounts: If your Microsoft account belongs to multiple Entra tenants, the extension automatically discovers the correct tenant for the Azure DevOps organization and re-authenticates. If automatic discovery fails, use the "Switch Account / Tenant" command from the Command Palette to force a fresh login.

Extension Commands

Known Issues

See KnownIssues.md for the current list.

Release Notes

See CHANGELOG.md for a full version history.