Microsoft has started consolidating Visual Studio Codespaces into GitHub Codespaces, allowing existing Visual Studio Codespaces users to transition to GitHub Codespaces. Last year, Microsoft announced the public preview of Visual Studio Codespaces.
Visual Studio Codespaces will be consolidated with GitHub Codespaces
As a result of the feedback on the public preview of Visual Studio Codespaces, Microsoft realized the importance of the one-click transition from a repository to a codespace.
This is where the Microsoft-owned source code management service GitHub comes into the picture. Following the release of the GitHub-native experience, Microsoft realized that two different experiences were confusing users.
“We believe that by consolidating the current Codespaces experiences into one, we can eliminate confusion, simplify the experience for everyone, and make more rapid progress to address customer feedback,” said Allison Buchholtz-Au Program Manager II, Visual Studio Online.
Microsoft wants users with the public preview of Visual Studio Codespaces to migrate to GitHub Codespaces, which is currently in a limited public beta.
“The next time you connect to a codespace through the portal or Visual Studio Code, we’ll prompt you to submit the preferred GitHub account you’d like to be added to the beta,” Allison added.
Microsoft will also request Azure subscribers with a Visual Studio Codespaces plan for their preferred GitHub account. In addition to GitHub Codespaces, developers can also use Git repositories hosted on Azure Repos and Bitbucket.
Meanwhile, users in the private preview of Visual Studio 2019 will also move to GitHub in the coming weeks. Here’s the brief timeline for the transition:
| September 4, 2020 | Current users can begin transitioning to the GitHub private beta |
| November 20, 2020 | The creation of new plans and codespaces will be disabled. New users will only be able to sign up for Codespaces on GitHub. |
| February 17, 2021 | The Visual Studio Codespaces portal will be retired. |
GitHub hosts more than 50 million developers on its platform. Microsoft wants to make the overall experience on GitHub even more interactive for developers. As a result, GitHub will soon make its Discussions functionality available in beta for public repositories.
Earlier, GitHub has announced its public roadmap for the first time to help developers understand what is expected of the Microsoft-owned company in the coming months.
