Visual Studio 2026, 6 Months Later

A six-month retrospective on Visual Studio 2026 from a working developer's perspective. Key improvements include genuinely faster performance (50%+ reduction in hangs), a much-improved Test Explorer that handles large test suites reliably, better Git tooling that reduces the need to switch to a terminal, Hot Reload that actually works consistently for ASP.NET Core, and a debugger that presents async stack traces in a readable format without MoveNext noise. GitHub Copilot agent mode is useful for scoped, well-defined refactors when given proper context via custom instructions, but requires oversight for code with implicit business constraints. The overall verdict: upgrade from VS 2022 — the unglamorous improvements compound into real daily productivity gains.