Continue is the leading open-source AI coding assistant. This project brings it to Visual Studio 2022 and 2026 as a native VSIX extension.
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| AI Chat panel | View -> Continue Chat or Ctrl+Shift+J |
| Inline ghost-text completions | Appear as you type - press Tab to accept, Esc to dismiss |
| Explain code | Select code -> Edit -> Continue -> Explain |
| Fix code | Select code -> Edit -> Continue -> Fix (includes Error List context) |
| Add comments | Select code -> Edit -> Continue -> Add Comment |
| Ask Continue | Select code -> Ctrl+Shift+M to open chat with selection pre-filled |
| Diff / apply | Continue can propose file edits; VS diff view opens for review |
| Model-agnostic | Works with OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama, Gemini, and any Continue provider |
| Config-driven | Same ~/.continue/config.json as the VS Code extension |
- Visual Studio 2022 17.9+ or Visual Studio 2026 (Community / Professional / Enterprise)
- .NET SDK 10+ (for the SDK-style project tooling)
- Visual Studio SDK workload installed (
Visual Studio extension development)
git clone https://github.com/strawhecker/ContinueVS
cd ContinueVS
dotnet build VSIXProject1\VSIXProject1\VSIXProject1.csprojThe output VSIX is written to:
VSIXProject1\VSIXProject1\bin\Debug\net472\ContinueVS.vsix
Double-click the VSIX to install, or use Extensions -> Manage Extensions in VS. Press F5 in Visual Studio to launch an Experimental Instance with the extension loaded.
On first launch ContinueVS automatically:
- Downloads the Continue AI engine (~60 MB) from the VS Marketplace VSIX.
- Extracts
continue-binary.exeand the React GUI assets into%APPDATA%\ContinueVS\. - Starts the binary and connects via stdio IPC.
Progress is shown in the VS status bar. An internet connection is required on first run only.
To use a custom binary: Tools -> Options -> Continue -> Binary path override.
ContinueVS reads the same config file as the VS Code extension:
~/.continue/config.json
See https://docs.continue.dev/reference/config for the full schema. ContinueVS watches this file for changes and reloads automatically.
Visual Studio process
ContinueVSPackage (AsyncPackage)
ContinueBinaryManager - launches continue-binary.exe as a child process
ContinueClient - stdio IPC: \r\n-delimited JSON on stdin/stdout
IdeCallbackHandler - answers ~40 IDE requests from the binary
EditorContextProvider - streams active-file / cursor context + didChangeActiveTextEditor
GhostTextAdornment - inline completion rendering (MEF ITextViewCreationListener)
DiffApplier - opens VS diff view for proposed edits
ContinueToolWindowPane - WebView2 hosting the Continue React chat UI
IPC wire format (matches upstream IpcMessenger.ts): {"messageType":"readFile","messageId":"","data":{"filepath":"C:\src\Foo.cs"}}\r\n
PRs welcome. Please open an issue first for significant changes. The Continue core logic lives upstream at https://github.com/continuedev/continue.
Apache 2.0 - see LICENSE.txt. Upstream Continue is also Apache 2.0.