What's Changed

• .NET Workflows - Rename agent-provider and add comments (Declarative Workflows) by @crickman in #3895
• .NET: [BREAKING] Add session StateBag for state storage and support multiple providers on the Agent by @westey-m in #3806
• .NET: [Breaking] Structured Output improvements by @SergeyMenshykh in #3761
• .NET: Add CreateSessionAsync overload with taskId for A2AAgent session resumption by @Copilot in #3924
• .NET: Add skill to verify samples by @westey-m in #3931
• .NET: Fixes for bug bash. by @westey-m in #3927
• .NET: [BREAKING] Refactor providers to move common functionality to base by @westey-m in #3900
• .NET: Surface downstream experimental flags and remove unnecessary suppressions by @westey-m in #3968
• .NET: [BREAKING] Replace Typed Base Providers with Composition by @westey-m in #3988
• .NET: Fix sample resource path resolution by @westey-m in #3952
• .NET: Fixing some small issues from bugbash by @westey-m in #3961
• .NET: Improve session cast error message quality and consistency by @westey-m in #3973
• .NET Workflows - Add unit tests for RequestExternalInputExecutor by @Copilot in #3891
• .NET Workflows - Add unit tests for ConditionGroupExecutor by @Copilot in #3893
• .NET: Open an active item in Solution Explorer in VS Code automatically by @SergeyMenshykh in #3992
• .NET Workflows - Add unit tests for QuestionExecutor by @Copilot in #3892
• .NET: Add additional build, test and project structure skills by @westey-m in #3987
• .NET: Update Microsoft.Agents.ObjectModel packages to 2026.2.2.1 by @Copilot in #4003
• .NET: Disable intermittently failing AzureAIAgentsPersistent integration tests by @SergeyMenshykh in #3997
• .NET: Inline private RunCoreAsync into the protected one by @SergeyMenshykh in #3928
• .NET: Add Foundry Evaluation samples (Safety + Quality) by @Copilot in #3697
• .NET: Fix MCP samples: update MCP SDK to 0.8.0-preview.1 and fix README references by @SergeyMenshykh in #3959
• .NET: BREAKING: Unify AgentResponse[Update] events as WorkflowOutputEvents by @lokitoth in #3441
• .NET: Support InvokeFunctionTool for declarative workflows by @peibekwe in #4014
• .NET: Fix FoundryAgents_Step15_ComputerUse sample for Azure Agents API by @rogerbarreto in #3989
• .NET: Add File Search Sample for Foundry Agents. by @rogerbarreto in #3990
• .NET: Fixes AgentWithHostedMCP chat fails: ErrorHTTP 404 (: 404) Resource not found by @rogerbarreto in #3856
• .NET: [BREAKING] Implement Polymorphic Routing by @lokitoth in #3792
• .NET: Fix CheckpointInfo.Parent always null in InProcessRunner by @lokitoth in #3812
• .NET: Update AdditionalAIContext sample with simplified implementation by @westey-m in #4039
• .NET: Add Foundry Agents Tool Sample - OpenAPI Tools by @rogerbarreto in #3702
• [BREAKING] .NET: Decouple Checkpointing from Run/StreamAsync APIs by @lokitoth in #4037
• .NET: Updated package versions for RC release by @dmytrostruk in #4067
• .NET: Add tweaks to .net agent skills by @westey-m in #4081
• .NET: Support a message only AIContextProvider as an AIAgent Decorator by @westey-m in #4009
• .NET: Remove FunctionCalls and Tool Messages from Handoff passed messages by @lokitoth in #3811
• .NET: Small fixes in README by @dmytrostruk in #4099
• .NET: [BREAKING] Workflows API Review Naming Changes (Part 1?) by @lokitoth in #4090

Full Changelog: dotnet-1.0.0-preview.260212.1...dotnet-1.0.0-rc1

Gemini 3.1 Pro promises a Google LLM capable of handling more complex forms of work.

Minecraft: Java Edition is switching its rendering backend from OpenGL to Vulkan as part of the upcoming Vibrant Visuals update, aiming for both better performance and modern graphics features across platforms like Linux and macOS (via translation layers). GamingOnLinux reports: For modders, they're suggesting they start making preparations to move away from OpenGL: "Switching from OpenGL to Vulkan will have an impact on the mods that currently use OpenGL for rendering, and we anticipate that updating from OpenGL to Vulkan will take modders more effort than the updates you undertake for each of our releases. To start with, we recommend our modding community look at moving away from OpenGL usage. We encourage authors to try to reuse as much of the internal rendering APIs as possible, to make this transition as easy as possible. If that is not sufficient for your needs, then come and talk to us!" It does mean that players on really old devices that don't support Vulkan will be left out, but Vulkan has been supported going back to some pretty old GPUs. You've got time though, as they'll be rolling out Vulkan alongside OpenGL in snapshots (development releases) "sometime over the summer." You'll be able to toggle between them during the testing period until Mojang believe it's ready. OpenGL will be entirely removed eventually once they're happy with performance and stability.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The IRS's IT division has reportedly lost 40% of its staff and nearly 80% of its tech leadership amid a federal "efficiency" overhaul, the agency's CIO revealed yesterday. The Register reports: Kaschit Pandya detailed the extent of the tech reorganization during a panel at the Association of Government Accountants yesterday, describing it as the biggest in two decades. ... The IRS lost a quarter of its workforce overall in 2025. But the tech team was clearly affected more deeply. At the start of the year, the team encompassed around 8,500 employees. As reported by Federal News Network (FNN), Pandya said: "Last year, we lost approximately 40 percent of the IT staff and nearly 80 percent of the execs." "So clearly there was an opportunity, and I thought the opportunity that we needed to really execute was reorganizing." That included breaking up silos within the organization, he said. "Everyone was operating in their own department or area." It is not entirely clear where all those staff have gone. According to a report by the US Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the IT department had 8,504 workers as of October 2024. As of October 2025, it had 7,135. However, reports say that as part of the reorganization, 1,000 techies were detailed to work on delivering frontline services during the US tax season. According to FNN, those employees have questioned the wisdom of this move and its implementation.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft announced a major update to OneDrive on the Mac that will deliver Mac-native dialogs and Liquid Glass.

The post OneDrive is Going Liquid Glass on the Mac appeared first on Thurrott.com.

Jens Gustedt, author of Modern C, senior scientist at the French National Institute for Computer Science and Control (INRIA), deputy director of the ICube lab, and former co-editor of the ISO C standard, speaks with SE Radio host Gavin Henry about the past 5 years in C, C2Y, and C23. They discuss what has happened in the C world since we last spoke 5 years ago, including how the latest C standard is going and what to expect. Jens discusses how the latest changes in the Modern C book apply to you, how a C transition header can help you get up to C23 if you're not there already, and presents a comprehensive approach for program failure. This episode explores C2Y, C23, bit-precise types, stdckdint.h, stdbit.h, 128 bit types, enumeration types, nullptr, Syntactic annotations, auto and typeof keywords, if let, as well as what's being added and removed in C2Y (possibly called "C28"), and Gustedt's four categories of program failure.

Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.

Download audio: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/seradio/708-jens-gustedt-c-lang-2026.mp3?dest-id=23379