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Custom chat modes (legacy) — redirected to Custom agents

https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/copilot/chat/chat-modes now redirects to https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/agent-customization/custom-agents.

The full content lives in custom-agents.md in this directory. Do not treat this file as a second source.

Key migration facts recorded by the target page:

  • Custom agents were previously known as custom chat modes. The functionality is unchanged; only the terminology was updated.
  • Existing .chatmode.md files must be renamed to .agent.md to convert them to the custom agent format.
  • Renamed files must be placed in a discovered location — .github/agents (workspace), .claude/agents (workspace, Claude format), ~/.copilot/agents (user profile), or any extra path configured via the chat.agentFilesLocations setting.
  • The old chat.modeFilesLocations setting is not mentioned anywhere in the current documentation; chat.agentFilesLocations is the setting the docs now point to for custom agent file discovery.