Agents - generate titles for untitled external sessions - #331985
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Benjamin Christopher Simmonds (benibenj) merged 8 commits intoAug 22, 2026
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External sessions whose provider surfaces them without a title showed up unnamed in the sessions list. Generate one from the user's first prompt, reusing the existing rename infrastructure. Adds a deferred-work lane on AgentService: `markStartupComplete()` is signalled by the process mains, and work queued through `_runWhenStartupSettled` runs once that and the first served session listing have both happened. Background maintenance therefore never competes with startup, and the service owns no ambient timer. The stale external-session prune moves onto the same lane, replacing its 60s timer. Discovery and legacy migration queue newly registered external sessions that have no provider title. The job keeps the 2 most recently updated candidates, reads the first user prompt from the default chat, and hands it to `AgentHostSessionTitleController.generateExternalSessionTitle`, which reuses the same utility-model prompt, cleaning, persistence, and cancellation as first-message titling. Sessions that already carry a persisted title are left alone, and a rename during generation cancels it. Since these sessions are surfaced but not live, `updateSurfacedSessionTitle` pushes the title onto the surfaced summary so clients update in place. Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
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Pull request overview
Adds deferred title generation for untitled external agent sessions after startup settles.
Changes:
- Introduces serialized post-startup maintenance for pruning and title generation.
- Generates and persists titles for the two newest untitled external sessions.
- Updates surfaced session summaries and protects concurrent user renames.
Show a summary per file
| File | Description |
|---|---|
agentService.ts |
Schedules maintenance and external-session titling. |
agentHostSessionTitleController.ts |
Generates, applies, and persists external titles. |
agentHostStateManager.ts |
Updates surfaced session titles. |
agentSideEffects.ts |
Exposes external title generation. |
agentHostMain.ts |
Signals desktop host startup completion. |
agentHostServerMain.ts |
Signals server startup completion. |
agentService.test.ts |
Tests deferred candidate selection. |
agentHostSessionTitleController.test.ts |
Tests persistence, updates, and rename protection. |
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- Files reviewed: 8/8 changed files
- Comments generated: 3
- Review effort level: Balanced
Benjamin Christopher Simmonds (benibenj)
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August 21, 2026 15:57
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Co-authored-by: benibenj <44439583+benibenj@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: benibenj <44439583+benibenj@users.noreply.github.com>
roblourens
previously approved these changes
Aug 21, 2026
- `generateExternalSessionTitle` returned a promise that resolved before generation had run, because `_generateTitleSoon` starts the work fire-and-forget. The awaited loop in `_titleUntitledExternalSessions` therefore launched both model calls concurrently and `whenDeferredWorkSettled()` reported completion while generation and persistence were still in flight, breaking the lane's serialization contract. Split out `_startTitleGeneration`, which returns the tracked promise, and await it on the external-session path. - `listSessions` marked the first listing as served from its rejection handler too, so deferred maintenance could start after a failed listing and compete with the retry the gate exists to protect. Keep in-flight cleanup on both paths but only set the flag on fulfillment. - `agentHostMain` marked startup complete while the configured WebSocket server was still being created and wired, so deferred work could begin concurrently with that remaining startup. Mark completion once the optional startup promise settles, keeping its non-fatal error handling. Adds a regression test for the failed-listing gate, and tightens the existing titling tests to assert the awaited-generation contract without polling. Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
roblourens
previously approved these changes
Aug 21, 2026
Resolves a conflict in `_registerDiscoveredChats`: main replaced the `existing` provenance map with a `registeredKeys` set, so take main's `registeredKeys.add(...)` while keeping the collection of untitled external sessions for deferred titling. Also repairs `new AgentService(...)` in agentService.test.ts, which main left calling the pre-`IAgentServiceCore` 5-argument signature; it now uses the file's `createTestAgentService` helper like every other case. Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
…nal-session-rename-logic
Bhavya U (bhavyaus)
previously approved these changes
Aug 21, 2026
Mohammad javad Dianat (dianatofficial)
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Mohammad javad Dianat (dianatofficial)
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LGTM! Code changes are clean and well-structured.
Resolves a conflict in `agentService.ts` against "Simplify AgentService composition (#332035)", which moved the `agents` / `onDidStartTurn` getters out of `AgentService` into the composition/runtime layer and left the region overlapping the deferred-work lane this branch added. Takes main's removal of both getters, drops main's timer-based `_scheduleExternalSessionPrune`, and keeps the startup-settled lane that replaced it — the prune now runs through `_runWhenStartupSettled` like the external-session titling job. Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
…nal-session-rename-logic # Conflicts: # src/vs/platform/agentHost/node/agentService.ts
Sandeep Somavarapu (sandy081)
approved these changes
Aug 22, 2026
Benjamin Christopher Simmonds (benibenj)
merged commit Aug 22, 2026
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Benjamin Christopher Simmonds (benibenj)
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August 22, 2026 09:55
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External sessions whose provider surfaces them without a title showed up unnamed in the sessions list. This generates one from the user's first prompt, reusing the existing rename infrastructure.
Deferred work
Rather than an ad-hoc timer,
AgentServicegets a single lane for maintenance that is fine to run late:markStartupComplete()is the explicit signal, called by the process mains —agentHostMainonce every ingress is wired,agentHostServerMainwhen it reportsREADY._runWhenStartupSettled(name, work)runs once that signal and the first served session listing have both happened, so background work never competes with startup. Jobs are serialized, failures are logged per job, and a disposal guard keeps work off a torn-down service.markStartupComplete().Titling external sessions
AgentHostSessionTitleController.generateExternalSessionTitle— the same utility-model prompt, cleaning, persistence and cancellation used for first-message titling.AgentHostStateManager.updateSurfacedSessionTitlepushes the title onto the surfaced summary and clients update in place; live sessions still go through the reducer.Validation
npm run typecheck-clientclean.agentService,agentHostSessionTitleController,agentHostStateManagerandagentSideEffectssuites, including four new tests: deferred titling of the 2 most recent candidates, surfaced-summary retitling, not clobbering a concurrent rename, and keeping an existing persisted title.sessionPermissionsfailures visible in a wider run reproduce on a clean checkout of this branch, so they are pre-existing and unrelated.