The Problem
When typing a question in Copilot Chat, it automatically selects a participant like @workspace or @terminal based on your question.
For example, asking “What’s causing this error?” might trigger @workspace, causing it to search your entire workspace. This slows down responses and sometimes gives irrelevant answers.
The Solution
The chat.detectParticipant.enabled setting lets you disable automatic participant detection.
How to Configure
- Open Settings with
Ctrl + , - Search for
detect participant - Uncheck “Chat: Detect Participant Enabled”
Example settings.json
{
"chat.detectParticipant.enabled": false
}The default is true (auto-detection enabled). Setting it to false stops Chat from automatically routing your questions to a specific participant.
Manually Selecting Participants
With auto-detection disabled, you can still select participants manually by typing @ in the chat input:
@workspace→ Questions about your entire workspace@terminal→ Questions about terminal output@vscode→ Questions about VS Code settings and features
Use participants explicitly only when you need them.
Summary
Set chat.detectParticipant.enabled to false to take control of which participant handles your Chat questions, avoiding unintended routing.