Integrate Web Search Functionality into GitHub Copilot

[iwangbowen]

Type: Feature Request

Based on the recent blog post (https://github.blog/changelog/2025-10-16-copilot-coding-agent-can-now-search-the-web/), the Copilot Coding Agent now supports web search capabilities. It would be beneficial to integrate this web search feature directly into GitHub Copilot within VS Code, allowing developers to query the web for information, documentation, or code examples without leaving the editor.

VS Code version: Code - Insiders 1.106.0-insider (9722262, 2025-10-16T05:02:37.143Z)
OS version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26100
Modes:

[TylerLeonhardt]

Yeah, it's a longstanding issue... here's what's possible today:

• Recommended: Use the GitHub MCP Server (the web_search part in the header is most important)... this is the same tool as Copilot Coding Agent I'm pretty sure.

		"github/github-mcp-server": {
			"type": "http",
			"url": "https://api.githubcopilot.com/mcp/",
			"gallery": "https://api.mcp.github.com/2025-09-15",
			"version": "0.13.0",
			"headers": {
				"X-MCP-Toolsets": "repos,issues,pull_requests,code_search,copilot,web_search"
			}
		}

• Our sample Web Search extension that lets you bring a Tavily/Bing API Key
• Context7 (I know it's not really the same)
• Built-in #fetch tool (I know it's not really the same)

[iwangbowen]

Yeah, it's a longstanding issue... here's what's possible today:

• Recommended: Use the GitHub MCP Server (the web_search part in the header is most important)... this is the same tool as Copilot Coding Agent I'm pretty sure.

		"github/github-mcp-server": {
			"type": "http",
			"url": "https://api.githubcopilot.com/mcp/",
			"gallery": "https://api.mcp.github.com/2025-09-15",
			"version": "0.13.0",
			"headers": {
				"X-MCP-Toolsets": "repos,issues,pull_requests,code_search,copilot,web_search"
			}
		}

• Our sample Web Search extension that lets you bring a Tavily/Bing API Key
• Context7 (I know it's not really the same)
• Built-in #fetch tool (I know it's not really the same)

Thanks for your reply

[isidorn]

@TylerLeonhardt CAPI is now exposing web_search for OpenAI models. Any chance we could expose it in the VS Code client for OpenAI models?
I am working on making sure we also expose it for Anthropic models (will keep you up to date)