Support for Claude MCP tool calling through code

[rchiodo]

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I'm was wondering if VS code has plans to implement support for this sort of tool calling that Claude seems to use:

https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/advanced-tool-use

And if VS code did, would extensions (or MCP servers) need to change at all

[vansh167]

VS Code doesn’t currently support Claude-style MCP tool calling directly, but the direction of the ecosystem makes it very likely that this will become possible through the existing agent / server integration layers rather than a brand-new API surface.

On the VS Code side:

• VS Code already supports language servers, chat participants, and the Copilot Agent API, all of which expose structured capabilities to an LLM.
• MCP fits the same pattern (external capability advertised through a protocol), so VS Code would not need a major architectural change to support it. It would just need an adapter that maps MCP tool definitions → VS Code’s existing tool / command surfaces.

On the extension side:

• Existing extensions or MCP servers would not need to be rewritten.
• MCP is designed so that servers expose capabilities in a self-describing way; an adapter layer in VS Code could read the manifest and register the tools as commands or agent functions.
• Extensions that already expose commands / LSP features would continue to work — the MCP adapter would simply make those capabilities available to the model in a structured format.

In short:
VS Code doesn’t support Claude-style MCP tool calling today, but the existing agent/LSP architecture already aligns with it. If support is added, most extensions or MCP servers wouldn’t need to change; the integration would happen at the VS Code side via a compatibility layer.

If Microsoft shares a roadmap on this, it will likely appear in the Copilot or Agent API documentation, but nothing official has been announced yet.