Autopilot Positioning
Click a card to see the characteristics of each mode / permission level. The "Autopilot" concept exists in both VS Code and the CLI.
VS Code
🛡️
Default Approvals
⚡
Bypass Approvals
🤖
Autopilot
Preview
Same autonomous-
execution concept
CLI
✏️
Suggest
💬
Interactive
default
📋
Plan
🤖
Autopilot
NEW
VS Code: Autopilot (Preview) — Fully automatic approvals + auto-answers to AI questions. The highest-level mode that runs autonomously until the task is complete.
Standard Mode vs Autopilot Flow
In Autopilot mode, the AI repeats an autonomous loop and minimizes interruptions to the user.
💬 Standard Mode (with approvals)
👤
Send instruction
↓
🤖
Generate suggestion
↓
👤
Approve / request changes
↓
🤖
Output revised proposal
↓
👤
Approve again
↓
🤖
Confirm completion
🤖 Autopilot (Autonomous)
👤
Initial instruction only
↓
🔄 Autonomous loop (internal steps are not billed)
📝 Edit files
↓
🧪 Run tests
↓
🔧 Fix errors
↓
🔁 Re-run tests
↓
✅ Completion check
Autopilot Stop Conditions
Autopilot stops automatically when any of the following conditions are met. Even in fully autonomous execution, humans always remain in control.
--max-autopilot-continues simulation
1 50 10
Auto-stop after 10 steps. A good setting for moderate-complexity tasks.
--allow-all flag
ON
Grants access to all tools, paths, and URLs. Recommended for Autopilot.
Request Count Comparison
Interactive mode generates a request for each human action. Autopilot's internal loop steps are not billed (shown in grey).
💬 Interactive (5 exchanges)
👤 Human sends +1
👤 Human sends +1
👤 Human sends +1
👤 Human sends +1
👤 Human sends +1
Total: 5 requests
🤖 Autopilot
👤 Human sends +1
Total: 1 request ← before execution
Internal tool calls (file reads/writes, shell execution, etc.) occur within Autopilot's autonomous loop but are treated as non-billed steps. Only AI turn transitions (= API requests) are charged.