Use Comma with Visual Studio
Visual Studio 17.14 and later run Copilot in agent mode with MCP tools. .NET teams produce plenty of reports worth reviewing — test results, coverage, benchmark runs — and Comma gives the agent somewhere to publish them as a page instead of a TRX file nobody opens.
Add Comma to Visual Studio
Visual Studio reads, in order: %USERPROFILE%\.mcp.json, <solution>\.vs\mcp.json, <solution>\.mcp.json, <solution>\.vscode\mcp.json, <solution>\.cursor\mcp.json. Or in Copilot Chat (Agent mode) → Tools → + → Add custom MCP server.
{
"servers": {
"comma": {
"url": "https://commareports.com/api/mcp",
"requestInit": {
"headers": {
"Authorization": "Bearer comma_sk_…"
}
}
}
}
}
Replace comma_sk_… with a token from Settings → API tokens → New token on Comma (or export it as COMMA_API_TOKEN where the snippet reads an env var). The default scopes — reports:write, comments:read, comments:write — cover publishing and review.
Visual Studio gotchas
- Top-level key is
servers, notmcpServers. - Headers go in
requestInit.headers. If your Visual Studio build doesn't pick the header up, use themcp-remotebridge below — same endpoint, header passed on the command line. - Use
%USERPROFILE%\.mcp.jsonfor the token. Solution-level files get committed.
Fallback: the mcp-remote bridge
If the header isn't sent, run the hosted endpoint through mcp-remote as a local stdio server (rename the top-level key to servers for Visual Studio):
{
"mcpServers": {
"comma": {
"command": "npx",
"args": [
"-y",
"mcp-remote",
"https://commareports.com/api/mcp",
"--header",
"Authorization:${AUTH_HEADER}",
"--transport",
"http-only"
],
"env": { "AUTH_HEADER": "Bearer comma_sk_…" }
}
}
}
What the agent can do
| Capability | Tools |
|---|---|
| Publish a report | create_report, update_report, create_report_from_url |
| Find existing reports | list_reports, search_reports, get_report, read_report |
| Leave / reply to comments | add_comment, reply_to_comment, set_comment_status, list_comments |
| Ask for review, share | request_review, set_report_sharing, get_report_signoffs |
| Manage assets | upload_report_asset, list_report_assets, delete_report_asset |
Copilot agent mode picks the tool from the request — there are no Visual Studio-specific commands to learn.
A workflow that sticks
- Ask Copilot agent mode to write up the work as a self-contained HTML report and publish it to Comma. It calls
create_reportand returns a link. - Send the link. Reviewers open a rendered page and leave comments anchored to the exact line, cell or chart they mean — no account needed to read a public link.
- Next session, ask Copilot agent mode to address the comments. It reads the threads with
list_comments, ships a revision withupdate_report(same URL), replies, and resolves them.
Reports belong to your workspace, not to the agent. A report published from Visual Studio can be revised tomorrow from Claude Code or Cursor, and the link people bookmarked keeps working.
Token shape
- Lives in
%USERPROFILE%\.mcp.json— keep it out of solution-level files. - Scoped — you choose which actions it can take when you create it.
- Revocable in one click from Settings → API tokens; revocation applies immediately to the REST API, the MCP server and any routines the token created.
- Rate-limited per token.
Details in API tokens → and Scoped tokens for AI agents →.
Try it
Add the entry, generate a token, restart Visual Studio, and ask for a report on something you worked on today. Then leave a comment on it and ask the agent what it sees.