Geez, but this is annoying...
To stop it in Visual Studio Code:
I have just one: "Thinking deeply". Example block:
Result:
Much better!
Press Scroll Lock.
Keyboard works again.
You're welcome
If you’re working with Visual Studio 2026, VS Code with Copilot, or other AI-assisted development tools, you may have noticed that these tools spawn terminal sessions for executing commands. I’ve created a PowerShell profile configuration that automatically detects these AI agent terminals and adjusts the experience accordingly.
When an AI agent (like GitHub Copilot) runs commands in a terminal, you typically don’t need the full interactive experience - Oh My Posh themes, PSReadLine predictions, and fancy prompts just add overhead. Conversely, when you’re using the terminal, you want the full experience.
This profile script:
Open PowerShell and run:
$PROFILE
This shows the path to your profile script (typically ~\Documents\PowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1).
If the file doesn’t exist:
New-Item -Path $PROFILE -ItemType File -Force
notepad $PROFILE
Here’s the complete script broken down by section:
# Detect Copilot/AI agent terminals
$script:parentProcessName = try { (Get-Process -Id $PID).Parent.Name } catch { $null }
$script:isCopilot = ($env:VSC_COPILOT_TERMINAL -eq "1") -or
($env:VS_TERMINAL_AGENT -eq "1") -or
($script:parentProcessName -eq "DevHub")
# Detect non-interactive/background terminals
$isNonInteractive = ($env:VSCODE_RESOLVING_TERMINAL -eq "1") -or
(-not [Environment]::UserInteractive)
This checks for:
VSC_COPILOT_TERMINAL - Set by VS Code for Copilot terminalsVS_TERMINAL_AGENT - Set by Visual Studio for agent terminalsDevHub parent process - Visual Studio 2026’s Copilot serviceThe script displays a header banner showing who’s in control:
if ($hasValidWindow) {
$width = $Host.UI.RawUI.WindowSize.Width
$time = Get-Date -Format "HH:mm:ss"
$user = $env:USERNAME.ToUpper()
if ($supportsNerdFonts) {
$copilotIcon = [char]::ConvertFromUtf32(0xF166A) # nf-md-robot
$userIcon = [char]::ConvertFromUtf32(0xF489) # nf-oct-terminal
$clockIcon = [char]::ConvertFromUtf32(0xF1425) # nf-md-clock_outline
} else {
$copilotIcon = "[BOT]"
$userIcon = ">"
$clockIcon = "@"
}
if ($script:isCopilot) {
$leftLabel = " $copilotIcon COPILOT AGENT "
$modeColor = "38;5;39" # Blue
} else {
$leftLabel = " $userIcon $user "
$modeColor = "38;5;99" # Purple
}
$rightLabel = " $time $clockIcon "
$fillCount = $width - $leftLabel.Length - $rightLabel.Length
$fillLine = if ($fillCount -gt 0) { [string]::new([char]0x2501, $fillCount) } else { "" }
Write-Host ""
Write-Host "`e[1;$($modeColor)m$leftLabel`e[0m`e[38;5;236m$fillLine`e[0m`e[90m$rightLabel`e[0m"
Write-Host ""
}
If you have Nerd Fonts installed (Windows Terminal, VS Code), you’ll see nice icons; otherwise, ASCII fallbacks are used.
if ($script:isCopilot) {
# Minimal prompt for AI agents
function global:prompt {
$Host.UI.RawUI.WindowTitle = "VS 2026 | Copilot"
"PS $($PWD.Path)> "
}
} else {
# Full Oh My Posh experience for humans
if (Get-Command oh-my-posh -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) {
$poshTheme = "$env:POSH_THEMES_PATH\marcduiker.omp.json"
if (Test-Path $poshTheme) {
oh-my-posh init pwsh --config $poshTheme | Invoke-Expression
}
}
}
Here’s the full profile script you can copy:
# ============================================================================
# PowerShell Profile - AI Agent Detection
# ============================================================================
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# 1. MODE DETECTION
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
$script:parentProcessName = try { (Get-Process -Id $PID).Parent.Name } catch { $null }
$script:isCopilot = ($env:VSC_COPILOT_TERMINAL -eq "1") -or
($env:VS_TERMINAL_AGENT -eq "1") -or
($script:parentProcessName -eq "DevHub")
$isNonInteractive = ($env:VSCODE_RESOLVING_TERMINAL -eq "1") -or
(-not [Environment]::UserInteractive)
$hasValidWindow = try { $Host.UI.RawUI.WindowSize.Width -gt 0 } catch { $false }
$supportsNerdFonts = ($env:WT_SESSION) -or
($env:TERM_PROGRAM -eq "vscode") -or
($env:VSAPPIDNAME -eq "devenv.exe") -or
($env:ConEmuANSI -eq "ON")
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# 2. HEADER BANNER
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
if ($hasValidWindow) {
$width = $Host.UI.RawUI.WindowSize.Width
$time = Get-Date -Format "HH:mm:ss"
$user = $env:USERNAME.ToUpper()
if ($supportsNerdFonts) {
$copilotIcon = [char]::ConvertFromUtf32(0xF166A)
$userIcon = [char]::ConvertFromUtf32(0xF489)
$clockIcon = [char]::ConvertFromUtf32(0xF1425)
} else {
$copilotIcon = "[BOT]"
$userIcon = ">"
$clockIcon = "@"
}
if ($script:isCopilot) {
$leftLabel = " $copilotIcon COPILOT AGENT "
$modeColor = "38;5;39"
} else {
$leftLabel = " $userIcon $user "
$modeColor = "38;5;99"
}
$rightLabel = " $time $clockIcon "
$fillCount = $width - $leftLabel.Length - $rightLabel.Length
$fillLine = if ($fillCount -gt 0) { [string]::new([char]0x2501, $fillCount) } else { "" }
Write-Host ""
Write-Host "`e[1;$($modeColor)m$leftLabel`e[0m`e[38;5;236m$fillLine`e[0m`e[90m$rightLabel`e[0m"
Write-Host ""
}
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# 3. EARLY EXIT FOR NON-INTERACTIVE TERMINALS
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
if ($isNonInteractive) { return }
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# 4. INTERACTIVE UI SETUP
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
if ($script:isCopilot) {
function global:prompt {
$Host.UI.RawUI.WindowTitle = "VS 2026 | Copilot"
"PS $($PWD.Path)> "
}
} else {
if (Get-Module -ListAvailable -Name PSReadLine) {
Import-Module PSReadLine -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Set-PSReadLineOption -PredictionSource History -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Set-PSReadLineOption -PredictionViewStyle ListView -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
}
if (Get-Command oh-my-posh -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) {
$poshTheme = "$env:POSH_THEMES_PATH\marcduiker.omp.json"
if (Test-Path $poshTheme) {
oh-my-posh init pwsh --config $poshTheme | Invoke-Expression
}
}
}
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# 5. ENCODING
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
$OutputEncoding = [Console]::OutputEncoding = [System.Text.UTF8Encoding]::new()
For the full experience:
winget install JanDeDobbeleer.OhMyPoshwinget install Microsoft.WindowsTerminal38;5;39 for blue, 38;5;99 for purple)When Copilot is active (with Nerd Fonts):
[robot-icon] COPILOT AGENT ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 14:32:15 [clock-icon]
When you’re in control:
> YOURNAME ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 14:32:15 [clock-icon]
(The actual icons render beautifully with Nerd Fonts installed!)
This small addition to your PowerShell profile makes it immediately clear whether you’re looking at a terminal session you control or one being operated by an AI assistant. It’s a simple quality-of-life improvement that becomes invaluable when working with modern AI-assisted development tools.
Feel free to adapt this to your needs - and share your improvements in the comments!
This article is also published on my personal blog: Detecting AI Agent Terminals in PowerShell
It's December 2025 and the BBC website at https://www.bbc.co.uk/ still doesn't have automatic dark mode detection. In an era where virtually every major website respects the prefers-color-scheme media query, the BBC continues to blast users with a bright white interface regardless of their OS settings.
The frustrating part? It would be trivially easy for them to add. The CSS @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) query has been widely supported since 2019. Six years later, we're still waiting.
Until the BBC catches up with the rest of the internet, you can fix it yourself using the Stylus browser extension. Here's how:
Install the Stylus extension for your browser:
Important: You need to set this style to apply to all BBC pages. In the style editor:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/Copy and paste the following CSS into the code editor:
/* This media query checks the user's OS preference */
@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
/* 1. Base Colors: Set the background of the whole page and the main text color */
body {
background-color: #121212 !important; /* Dark gray background */
color: #e0e0e0 !important; /* Light gray text */
}
/* 2. Primary Containers: Override white backgrounds on main content blocks, HEADER, NAV, FOOTER, and individual news cards */
header,
nav,
footer,
article,
aside,
.nw-c-most-read-list,
.gs-c-promo-body, /* Targets the body of a promotional card */
.gs-c-promo, /* Targets the promotional card itself */
.nw-o-keyline, /* Targets common section separators/containers */
.ssrcss-11vwucc-Container, /* Targets the specific content wrapper shown in Dev Tools */
.ssrcss-1b2q7d0-GridItem, /* Targets a common list/grid item container */
.ssrcss-17p825a-StyledWrapper, /* Targets another common section wrapper */
.ssrcss-1pm1h7u-StyledBorders, /* Ensure background behind bordered elements is dark */
.ssrcss-17c37qf-StyledBorders, /* Ensure background behind bordered elements is dark */
.ssrcss-1yv54b, /* Example of a potential main article wrapper class */
.ssrcss-17lvw4x-GridContainer, /* Example of a potential grid container */
.ssrcss-vy1h6s-GlobalNavigationContainer, /* Targets large global navigation/content wrapper */
.ssrcss-1k5z96v-Container, /* Targets the main grid/story wrapper */
.ssrcss-de737q-Container, /* Targets the recurring child div content containers */
*:not(img):not(svg) { /* NEW: Highly specific fix for any element with an explicit white background */
background-color: #1a1a1a !important;
}
[role="main"] {
background-color: #1a1a1a !important;
color: #e0e0e0 !important;
}
/* 3. Article Text and Headings: Ensure all foreground text is readable */
h1, h2, h3, p, span {
color: #f0f0f0 !important;
}
/* 4. Links: Change default blue/black links to a lighter, readable color */
a:link, a:visited {
color: #8ab4f8 !important; /* A light blue for contrast */
}
/* 4b. Specific Navigation Links: Ensure navigation text (e.g., "News", "UK") is white against the dark header */
nav a,
header a,
.ssrcss-rrm6an-RichTextContainer,
.ssrcss-1j1rzn0-Stack {
color: #f0f0f0 !important;
}
/* 5. Borders: If borders exist, make them slightly darker than the background */
.ssrcss-1pm1h7u-StyledBorders, .ssrcss-17c37qf-StyledBorders {
border-color: #333333 !important;
}
/* 6. Image Background Fix: Prevent white flash when images are loading or transparent */
img,
.ssrcss-153qrb0-ImageWrapper { /* Targets the image element and a common BBC image wrapper */
background-color: #1a1a1a !important;
}
/* 7. Forms */
input,
textarea,
button,
.ssrcss-w94gox-TextAreaWrapper {
color: #f0f0f0 !important;
border-color: #777 !important;
}
}Click "Save" (or press Ctrl+S). The style will immediately apply to any open BBC tabs.
Now when you visit bbc.co.uk with your OS set to dark mode, you'll get a proper dark theme instead of being blinded by white backgrounds.
This CSS took about 5 minutes to write. You have a team of developers. Please just add dark mode support. It's 2025. Thank you.
When GitHub Copilot (or similar AI coding assistants) uses run_command_in_terminal with PowerShell here-strings (@‘…’@ or @“…”@), the terminal enters continuation mode and hangs indefinitely, waiting for input that never comes.
• Terminal shows >> prompts repeatedly
• Command never completes
• Task eventually times out or must be cancelled with Ctrl+C
PowerShell here-strings require:
Add this to your repository’s .github/copilot-instructions.md:
## ⚠️ Terminal Command Limitations
### NEVER Use PowerShell Here-Strings in Terminal Commands
When using `run_command_in_terminal`, **NEVER** use PowerShell here-strings (`@'...'@` or `@"..."@`). They cause the terminal to hang.
### ✅ Alternatives:
1. **For file edits**: Use the `edit_file` tool (preferred)
2. **For simple replacements**: Use single-line `-replace` with escaped patterns
3. **For complex changes**: Provide code to the user to paste manually
4. **If terminal is needed**: Write content to a temp file first
AI assistants should never use PowerShell here-strings in terminal commands. Always prefer dedicated file editing tools or provide code snippets for manual pasting when multi-line content is involved.
It seems that Toggl have crippled their API by limiting even customers paying several thousand dollars a year to 600 calls per hour.
PER HOUR!
This unfortunately makes Toggl useless to us, as we are unable to execute HR reports or simple system integrations in a reasonable amount of time. We are currently looking around for alternatives.