Skip to content

Drift in VS Code Copilot Chat — Workflow Guide

After running drift analyze, drift writes a compact session file to .vscode/drift-session.json and displays a Copilot Chat Handoff panel in the terminal. The panel lists the top findings and three slash commands you can invoke directly in VS Code Copilot Chat — no extension required.

Prerequisites

  • VS Code with GitHub Copilot Chat enabled
  • drift installed in the project's virtual environment (or globally)

No additional plugins or marketplace extensions are needed.

Setup (one-time per repository)

drift kit init

That's it. The command writes the three slash-command prompt files into .github/prompts/, merges chat.promptFilesLocations into .vscode/settings.json (existing settings are preserved), and adds .vscode/drift-session.json to .gitignore. It is idempotent — running it again is a no-op. Use --force to overwrite the prompt files after upgrading drift.

Run drift analyze

drift analyze --repo .

At the end of the output you will see a drift-kit panel:

┌─────────────────────────────── drift-kit ─────────────────────────────┐
│  Severity  Signal                    File                  Reason      │
│  high      pattern_fragmentation     src/core/engine.py    …           │
│  medium    module_dependency_score   src/utils/helpers.py  …           │
│                                                                         │
│  Next: /drift-fix-plan  /drift-export-report  /drift-auto-fix-loop    │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

The session file .vscode/drift-session.json is written automatically and is excluded from version control via .gitignore.

Available slash commands

Open VS Code Copilot Chat (++ctrl+alt+i++) and type one of the following:

Command Purpose
/drift-fix-plan Generate a prioritized, actionable fix plan from the top findings
/drift-export-report Produce a self-contained markdown report to share or attach to a ticket
/drift-auto-fix-loop Step through each finding one at a time with explicit confirm/skip gates 
drift analyze
    │
    └─► /drift-fix-plan          ← what needs fixing and how
              │
              └─► /drift-auto-fix-loop  ← apply fixes with confirmation
                        │
                        └─► /drift-export-report  ← document the result

Session file

All three slash commands read .vscode/drift-session.json. This file holds:

  • drift_score and grade from the most recent analysis
  • top_findings — up to 5 findings ordered by severity, then impact
  • findings_total, critical_count, high_count
  • analyzed_at — ISO 8601 UTC timestamp

If you run drift analyze again, the file is overwritten automatically.

Stale session

If analyzed_at is older than 24 hours, the slash commands warn you and recommend re-running drift analyze. They do not block execution.

If .vscode/drift-session.json does not exist when you invoke a slash command, Copilot Chat will prompt you to run drift analyze first.

JSON output

If you redirect analysis to a file, the session is not written and the handoff panel is not shown:

drift analyze --format json --output findings.json   # no session file written
drift analyze --format json                          # session file + drift_kit key in stdout

When running without --output, JSON output includes a drift_kit key at the top level so downstream automation can consume the handoff block directly.

MCP vs. Copilot Chat handoff

Both integration paths serve different use cases:

MCP (Cursor / VS Code Agent) Copilot Chat Handoff
Requires MCP server Yes No
Interactive tool calls Yes No
Entry point Agent chat, inline completion Slash commands (/drift-fix-plan)
Session persistence Per-session .vscode/drift-session.json
Best for Automated fix loops in agent mode Manual review + guided remediation

Use MCP when you want the agent to drive the full analysis loop. Use the Copilot Chat handoff when you want to keep control and step through findings yourself.