The Billing Change That Changed Everything VS Code 1.118.0 dropped today, and it's the most consequential release in months. Not because of flashy new features—though there are several—but because of what's driving them: on June 1, 2026, GitHub Copilot switches to usage-based billing . Every token you send costs real money. And suddenly, the VS Code team has a very different optimization target. The result? This release reads like an all-hands sprint to slash token usage without degrading quality. Prompt caching refinements. Deferred tool loading. Purpose-built small models for search and execution. WebSocket connections for lower latency. I've watched Microsoft ship incremental AI features for two years—this is the first time I've seen them move with this kind of urgency on efficiency . But efficiency isn't the only story here. Remote control for Copilot CLI sessions, semantic search for non-GitHub repos, and Chronicle (a local SQLite index of your entire chat history) all shipped alongside the token work.…