Sometimes recommends autocomplete / intellisense for wrong cmdlet

[o-l-a-v]

Prerequisites

• I have written a descriptive issue title.
• I have searched all open and closed issues to ensure it has not already been reported.
• I have read the troubleshooting guide.
• I am sure this issue is with the extension itself and does not reproduce in a standalone PowerShell instance.
• I have verified that I am using the latest version of Visual Studio Code and the PowerShell extension.
• If this is a security issue, I have read the security issue reporting guidance.

Summary

I often experience that vscode-powershell recommends autocomplete / intellisense for wrong cmdlet. Example just now, seems intellisense is from Add-Member cmdlet and Test-NetConnection? Really messed up.

PowerShell Version

PS > $Host

Name             : Visual Studio Code Host
Version          : 2025.0.0
InstanceId       : 476d96e4-8e7b-477f-8cae-df84de083700
UI               : System.Management.Automation.Internal.Host.InternalHostUserInterface
CurrentCulture   : en-SE
CurrentUICulture : en-GB
PrivateData      : Microsoft.PowerShell.ConsoleHost+ConsoleColorProxy
DebuggerEnabled  : True
IsRunspacePushed : False
Runspace         : System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.LocalRunspace

PS > $PSVersionTable

Name                           Value
----                           -----
PSVersion                      7.5.1
PSEdition                      Core
GitCommitId                    7.5.1
OS                             Microsoft Windows 10.0.26100
Platform                       Win32NT
PSCompatibleVersions           {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0…}
PSRemotingProtocolVersion      2.3
SerializationVersion           1.1.0.1
WSManStackVersion              3.0

PS >

Visual Studio Code Version

1.100.0
19e0f9e681ecb8e5c09d8784acaa601316ca4571
x64

Extension Version

ms-vscode.powershell@2025.0.0

Steps to Reproduce

Write PowerShell. Use cmdlets. Often get recommended parameters / autocomplete / intellisense for the wrong cmdlet.

Visuals

No response

Logs

No response

[andyleejordan]

Note the 'abc' symbol next to it, I'm pretty sure that means that's a word-based suggestion (that is, from VS Code completing out of what thinks are nearby symbols) not an extension-completion. Can you try disabling editor.suggest.showWords?

[JustinGrote]

You can disable it on a per-language basis too

  "[powershell]": {
    "editor.wordBasedSuggestions": "off",
  },

[o-l-a-v]

What a useless VSCode feature. I'll try to disable it and see if it makes me happy. Thanks to both. 😊

[JustinGrote]

It's actually pretty useful in languages that don't have an LSP (or a crappy one). You can also set it to "bottom" so they only show up last.

[o-l-a-v]

Maybe. Based on my experience with PowerShell it does not seem particularly useful with with intellisense suggestions with no context. Maybe LLMs could improve it, it could understand context a bit better.

[o-l-a-v]

I'm happy with intellisense suggestions now that I've disabled word based suggestions with:

{
  "[powershell]": {
    "editor.wordBasedSuggestions": "off",
  }
}

Thank you. 😊