The relatively new VS Code technical terms chat participants, chat variables, and slash commands can be accessed with the prefixes @, #, and / in GitHub Copilot. This post explains the differences and gives usage examples.

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While GitHub Copilot prompt files are related to the instruction files I discussed in my previous post, they serve a different purpose. Prompt files are custom Markdown templates that allow you to automate coding tasks through custom AI-driven slash commands in GitHub Copilot for VS Code. Prompt templates are powerful, as they can utilize MCP server commands as tools. In this article, I will explain how to create prompt files and provide a simple usage example.

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In Visual Studio Code version 1.100, Microsoft introduced GitHub Copilot instruction files, which mirror the Rules feature in AI IDEs like Cursor and Windsurf. Instructions allow you to guide the AI assistant’s behavior by providing specific, context-aware directives tailored to your coding standards and project requirements.

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Perplexity is an AI search engine that answers questions by combining real-time web results with conversational, natural language responses. Installing Perplexity's official MCP server on your Mac or Windows PC allows querying Perplexity from any AI model in VS Code GitHub Copilot. Enabling your AI to search the web for the latest updates is a must-have feature for scripting or working in the terminal.

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OpenAI Codex CLI is a new open-source command-line tool that integrates AI models into any terminal. It enables you to generate, edit, and execute code using natural language prompts. I tested Codex CLI on Windows and Mac and concluded that it is no match for advanced AI CLIs such as Warp, Cline, or Roo Code. Do not mix up Codex CLI with OpenAI's Codex model, which was discontinued in March 2023. Perhaps Sam Altman should seek advice from ChatGPT before naming future products.

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I compared six frontier AI models—DeepSeek V3, Anthropic Claude Sonnet 3.7, Google Gemini 2.5 Pro, Meta Llama 4 Maverick, OpenAI GPT 4o (GPT 4.1), and Mistral Large 2—in terms of their capabilities in interacting with MCP servers. Surprisingly, the performance in terms of accuracy, token usage, and API costs are quite different..

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Roo Code and Cline are popular AI-driven coding extensions for VS Code. Both assistants indicate whether they support Images, Computer Use, and Prompt Caching when selecting a model. In this post, I explain these model features and whether you need them when coding with AI assistance.

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LLMs' knowledge cutoff date is a significant issue, often resulting in outdated responses. Some frontier models can browse the web, but they frequently skip this ability because they think they can handle things on their own. Bringing in an MCP server that can search the web helps the AI stay updated and assist it when struggling with a problem. Tavily is a research search engine designed to summarize online content for AI models. In this post, I will guide you through installing the Tavily MCP server on Windows. Installing on a Mac follows a similar process.

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Playwright is an open-source framework by Microsoft for automating web browsers to perform end-to-end testing, scraping, and UI interactions across Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit. The Playwright MCP server lets AI agents like GitHub Copilot control a web browser using Playwright’s automation capabilities. Microsoft introduced support for MCP in Visual Studio Code 1.99 (March 2025), enabling tools like the Copilot Agent to connect with external services. In this post, I explain how to install the Microsoft Playwright MCP server in VS Code for the GitHub Copilot Agent.

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In March 2025, the release of VS Code version 1.99 introduced support for Anthropic's Model Context Protocol (MCP) in GitHub Copilot's Agent Mode. This open standard is now backed by leading AI companies such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and OpenAI. MCP provides a standardized framework that allows AI models to interact with external tools and data sources. In this post, I will guide you on how to install, start, stop, activate, and deactivate MCP servers. You will also learn to configure settings in mcp.json and settings.json, as well as import MCP servers from Claude Desktop, Cline, and Roo Code.

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In Visual Studio Code release 1.99, Microsoft introduced GitHub Copilot’s Agent mode, a feature that closely resembles functionalities previously offered by Cursor, Cline, and Roo Code. Agent mode lets Copilot examine the codebase, find relevant files, make edits, and autonomously run and debug code. In this post, I’ll compare Agent mode with Ask and Edit mode and outline how Agent mode facilitates vibe coding—the automation of writing code.

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The AI tools for the Command Line Interface (CLI) we discussed on 4sysops connect the terminal to AI models. For example, the Warp terminal includes AI tools designed to help admins working on a CLI. The Windows CLI MCP Server does the opposite. If you missed it, the Model Context Protocol (MCP) is a new open standard for AI agent communication with software services created by Anthropic and backed by OpenAI, Amazon, and Microsoft. With MCP, your primary interface is the chatbot, and for the Windows CLI MCP Server, shell access is an additional tool the AI can utilize. The Windows CLI MCP Server supports PowerShell, CMD, Git Bash shells, and remote SSH.

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Have you ever received the notice stating, "Additional security updates can be applied with ESM Apps" after logging into an Ubuntu Linux machine? Despite working with Ubuntu for 15 years, this was the first time I encountered it. Since this was a relatively new installation of Ubuntu 24.04, I was perplexed as to why I couldn't install all security updates using apt upgrade. After some investigation, I discovered I was using Ubuntu Standard, while only Ubuntu Pro qualifies for all security updates. I felt annoyed and deceived because my system had no uncommon packages, and everything I installed came from the Ubuntu repository. This means that, in most cases, a fresh installation of the latest Ubuntu Linux LTS release does not receive all critical security updates.

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Zapier is a cloud-based automation platform that lets users connect and automate workflows between thousands of web services without coding. Recently, Zapier announced support for Anthropic's MCP standard. MCP is an open protocol that allows AI models to interact with external tools, data sources, and services, and it's now also supported by OpenAI, Microsoft, and Amazon. In this post, I share my experiences with Zapier's MCP server.

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AI enables administrators to adapt complex open-source projects easily to their environment. If the project is not hosted on GitHub or other version control platforms, it becomes tedious to merge your changes into the open-source software whenever the maintainer updates their project. The Bash script I discuss in this post uses Git to automate merging your code changes into a new version provided by the maintainer of an open-source project lacking version control.

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In my previous post, I explained how to use the OpenAI library to augment your AI-powered terminal. Today, we will build on this enhancement and encourage two AIs to collaborate on IT tasks in the Warp terminal. Warp includes strong AI capabilities, though it currently only supports models lacking search features. As a result, you're using models with outdated IT knowledge. With a few tweaks, you can make Warp AI prompt GPT-4 Search to bypass the cutoff date of the Warp models.

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The GPT-4o Search model offers search engine functionality similar to ChatGPT Search or Perplexity when accessed via the OpenAI API. With the free OpenAI Python Library, you can enhance your terminal AI by adding online search features, overcoming the limitations of LLM cutoff dates, and eliminating the frustration of outdated instructions. This post will guide you on installing the OpenAI Python library and using it conveniently in Windows PowerShell, Warp, or any other terminal.

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In this guide, I’ll walk through installing ShellGPT (shell_gpt) – a command-line AI assistant – on PowerShell using a local Ollama LLM. This approach lets you use AI in your terminal without relying on cloud APIs, which is great for privacy. This review highlights the use of ShellGPT on Windows through PowerShell. If you are using Mac or Linux, check out our earlier review of ShellGPT.

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Manus AI, a Chinese general AI agent, has created significant buzz in the AI community. Some perceive it as the next DeepSeek moment, while others minimize its significance, viewing it merely as a wrapper for Anthropic's Sonnet 3.5. Exploring the open-source tool WebUI helps understand one of the underlying technologies of Manus AI, the open-source framework Browser Use, which is key to Manus AI's web capabilities.

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