Shell Launcher

⚠️ This extension is now deprecated in favor of the builtin terminal profiles feature that landed in v1.55. Read more about it in the release notes. If you rely on features from this extension that aren't in profiles please create an issue against the microsoft/vscode repo.

Easily launch multiple shell configurations in the terminal.

Commands

This extension exposes the following commands that can be keybound in your keybindings.json file:

• shellLauncher.launch: Display a quick pick that allows selecting of one of the configured terminal shells.

Configuration

Do the following to bind the Shell Launcher command to CTRL+SHIFT+T.

1. Open VS Code and hit CTRL+SHIFT+T, that will open keybindings.json. You can choose another key combination if you have already assigned CTRL+SHIFT+T to another command.

2. Enter the following code to they keybindings.json file.

[{
    "key": "ctrl+shift+t",
    "command": "shellLauncher.launch"
}]

3. Save keybindings.json, hit CTRL+SHIFT+T and the Shell Launcher will open.

Settings

All shells can be user configured in your settings.json file, there is a different key for each platform:

• shellLauncher.shells.linux: For Linux
• shellLauncher.shells.osx: For macOS
• shellLauncher.shells.windows: For Window

When creating a shell configuration, the path to the executable must be defined. Other values are optional and will cause changes in the way the UI elements are presented.

• shell: Path to the executable that launches the shell
• args: (Optional) An array of arguments to be passed to the shell on startup
• label: (Optional) Displayed in the shellLauncher dropdown menu
• launchName: (Optional) Displayed in the terminal dropdown menu, note that this is static and replaces the default terminal name that changes based on the program being run
• cwd: (Optional) A path for the current working directory to be used for the terminal
• env: (Optional) Environment variables to be set for the terminal

Here is an example shell which will launch bash as a login shell (bash -l) on Linux:

{
  "shellLauncher.shells.linux": [
    {
      "shell": "bash",
      "args": ["-l"],
      "label": "bash login shell"
    }
  ]
}