Terminal with starship: escape characters above prompt

[diego-pm]

Type: Bug

I have configured starship on WSL, with bash. However, the prompt appears 2 times, and the first time it appears with escape characters:

\]project\[\] on \[\] master\[\] \[\][?]\[\] via \[\] v3.12.3 (venv) \[\]on \[\]  (eu-west-1) \[\];;71ad3c63-8c89-454e-8323-810a9b3e151e\]❯\[\] \[\];;71ad3c63-8c89-454e-8323-810a9b3e151e
project on  master [?] via  v3.12.3 (venv) on   (eu-west-1) 

I found that the issue does not appear if I disable the following setting: "terminal.integrated.shellIntegration.environmentReporting"

VS Code version: Code 1.98.0 (6609ac3d66f4eade5cf376d1cb76f13985724bcb, 2025-03-04T21:06:18.612Z) OS version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.19045 Modes: Remote OS version: Linux x64 5.15.167.4-microsoft-standard-WSL2

System Info

Item	Value
CPUs	Intel(R) Core(TM) Ultra 7 165U (14 x 2688)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: enabled canvas_oop_rasterization: enabled_on direct_rendering_display_compositor: disabled_off_ok gpu_compositing: enabled multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on opengl: enabled_on rasterization: enabled raw_draw: disabled_off_ok skia_graphite: disabled_off video_decode: enabled video_encode: enabled vulkan: disabled_off webgl: enabled webgl2: enabled webgpu: enabled webnn: disabled_off
Load (avg)	undefined
Memory (System)	15.46GB (2.05GB free)
Process Argv	--crash-reporter-id 74d13807-d8a0-4836-95d0-b6a8d2261209
Screen Reader	no
VM	0%

Item	Value
Remote	WSL: Ubuntu
OS	Linux x64 5.15.167.4-microsoft-standard-WSL2
CPUs	Intel(R) Core(TM) Ultra 7 165U (14 x 0)
Memory (System)	7.49GB (5.79GB free)
VM	0%

Extensions (36)

Extension	Author (truncated)	Version
markdown-mermaid	bie	1.27.0
ruff	cha	2025.14.0
path-intellisense	chr	2.10.0
copilot	Git	1.277.0
copilot-chat	Git	0.25.0
vscode-pull-request-github	Git	0.106.0
rainbow-csv	mec	3.17.0
git-graph	mhu	1.30.0
debugpy	ms-	2025.4.0
python	ms-	2025.2.0
vscode-pylance	ms-	2025.3.1
datawrangler	ms-	1.20.1
jupyter	ms-	2025.2.0
jupyter-keymap	ms-	1.1.2
jupyter-renderers	ms-	1.1.0
vscode-jupyter-cell-tags	ms-	0.1.9
vscode-jupyter-slideshow	ms-	0.1.6
color-highlight	nau	2.8.0
vscode-conventional-commits	viv	1.26.0
better-comments	aar	3.0.2
vscode-kmonad	can	0.2.0
vscode-lark	dir	0.1.0
dotenv	mik	1.0.1
jupyter-keymap	ms-	1.1.2
remote-containers	ms-	0.401.0
remote-ssh	ms-	0.118.0
remote-ssh-edit	ms-	0.87.0
remote-wsl	ms-	0.88.5
vscode-remote-extensionpack	ms-	0.26.0
remote-explorer	ms-	0.4.3
remote-server	ms-	1.5.2
material-icon-theme	PKi	5.20.0
rewrap	stk	1.16.3
pdf	tom	1.2.2
errorlens	use	3.24.0
material-theme	zhu	3.19.0

(1 theme extensions excluded)

A/B Experiments

vsliv368cf:30146710
vspor879:30202332
vspor708:30202333
vspor363:30204092
vswsl492:30256859
pythonvspyt551cf:31249601
vscod805cf:30301675
binariesv615:30325510
py29gd2263:31024239
c4g48928:30535728
azure-dev_surveyone:30548225
962ge761:30959799
f8hc8238:30694864
2e7ec940:31000449
pythontbext0:30879054
cppperfnew:31000557
dwnewjupytercf:31046870
nativerepl2:31139839
pythonrstrctxt:31112756
nativeloc2:31192216
iacca1:31171482
5fd0e150:31155592
dwcopilot:31170013
6074i472:31201624
dwoutputs:31242946
customenabled:31248079
hdaa2157:31222309
copilot_t_ci:31222730
968h8231:31253945
jda6j935:31233686

[Tyriar]

@diego-pm did you explicitly set terminal.integrated.shellIntegration.environmentReporting when you saw this? It should be off in stable VS Code.

[Tyriar]

@anthonykim1 we might be hitting an edge case specific to WSL where this check doesn't work since we check isWindows on the Linux side:

https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/blob/4a929292eef1717c181a0231e4f009f62639c8d9/src/vs/platform/terminal/node/terminalEnvironment.ts#L92-L95

[diego-pm]

@diego-pm did you explicitly set terminal.integrated.shellIntegration.environmentReporting when you saw this? It should be off in stable VS Code.

I manually set terminal.integrated.shellIntegration.environmentReporting to true when I updated vs code to v1.98, but I did not have starship installed yet. Then, I installed and setup the starship prompt for bash, and saw the problem. I tried changing the settings related to integrated terminal to see if anything changed.

[bewing]

I also saw this issue start last week with Insiders on WSL2, and did not have terminal.integrated.shellIntegration.environmentReporting in my settings at all. It must default to true, as I added it as false and the escape characters went away after restarting the shell.

[Tyriar]

Fixed in https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/pull/243804

[anthonykim1]

@diego-pm could you just make sure you don't see the weird characters on your prompt? I've made some fixes #243804 which should address this issue. Thanks sm.

[diego-pm]

@diego-pm could you just make sure you don't see the weird characters on your prompt? I've made some fixes #243804 which should address this issue. Thanks sm.

I haven't received an update for vscode yet, so the problem still exists if I activate the option terminal.integrated.shellIntegration.environmentReporting. Should I install the insiders version?

[Tyriar]

@diego-pm you will need to restart your terminal after setting terminal.integrated.shellIntegration.environmentReporting, the fix for when it's enabled is only on the Insiders version which is our nightly build.

[diego-pm]

@diego-pm you will need to restart your terminal after setting terminal.integrated.shellIntegration.environmentReporting, the fix for when it's enabled is only on the Insiders version which is our nightly build.

I have checked with the insiders version and I no longer see the escape characters. Thanks!