Chat: support an action to send a chat request and clear widget

[bpasero]

From our sessions sync, we raised the idea to allow to send a chat request and immediately return to an empty Chat so that you can essentially just fire of a chat request and then immediately another one without having to see the response.

We could wire this as alternative action into the execute one we have today:

Screen.Recording.2026-01-09.at.12.35.27.mov

(the alternate action we have today allows to start a new chat)

@roblourens I tried to hack this in but failed so far, is this even supported from the API of the chat widget? I know I can call widget.acceptInput to start a chat, but it would need some kind of option to then proceed in the "background".

//cc @jo-oikawa

[roblourens]

I don't understand what the problem is. You can send a request then start a new session I guess?

[bpasero]

@roblourens that does not seem to do anything. I pushed my PoC to ben/strategic-tortoise branch.

The change is around here:

vscode/src/vs/workbench/contrib/chat/browser/actions/chatExecuteActions.ts

Lines 642 to 646 in b74707f

	// Submit to current chat first
	widget.acceptInput();
	// Then clear to start a new chat
	commandService.executeCommand(ACTION_ID_NEW_CHAT);

Steps:

• empty chat
• type something
• Option-click on the submit button

Screen.Recording.2026-01-13.at.06.41.51.mov

[bpasero]

@roblourens oh interesting, only now I see #286767 which actually seems to work, could you give it a review?

[bpasero]

cc @benibenj as this goes into the direction of "new session" management from chat input

[roblourens]

This seems like the right approach, but it's changing the existing "send to new chat" to do something different, which is "send, then open new chat" is that what you want? Isn't there still a case for "send to new chat"? And the name is now not describing what happens here IMO