Run routine shell work in a compact VS Code panel. Claude and Codex stay on native editor terminals, while git, npm, sls, uv, and similar commands use an independently sized terminal surface.
The extension targets macOS and owns one interactive shell process per terminal entry. It uses xterm.js with WebGL acceleration, automatic renderer fallback, and the active VS Code terminal colors.
Usage
Run Simply Another Terminal: Reveal Terminal from the Command Palette. The
command focuses the SAT bottom-panel container. Hiding and revealing the
panel keeps every terminal process and scrollback buffer alive.
The plus action adds and selects a terminal in the active workspace. The trash
action terminates and removes only the selected terminal, then selects the
nearest remaining entry. Open in Simply Another Terminal appears on Explorer
folders and adds a selected terminal in that directory.
The right-side strip shows one icon per terminal. Selecting an icon swaps the visible renderer without rebuilding it. Dragging an icon onto another reorders the strip. Hover text shows the immutable launch-folder name, process identifier, absolute launch path, and exit state. Deleting the last terminal leaves an empty panel where plus can create another.
Each terminal supports keyboard input, ANSI and true-color output, live resize,
selection copy, clipboard paste, HTTP and HTTPS links, independent scrollback,
and explicit restart after exit. Shell failures affect only their terminal and
also appear in the Simply Another Terminal output channel.
Requirements
- VS Code 1.85 or newer
- macOS
Settings
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
simplyAnotherTerminal.fontSize |
12 |
Terminal font size, independent from the native integrated terminal |
simplyAnotherTerminal.fontFamily |
(empty) | Font family; an empty value inherits terminal.integrated.fontFamily |
simplyAnotherTerminal.shellPath |
(empty) | Shell executable; an empty value uses SHELL and falls back to /bin/zsh on macOS |
simplyAnotherTerminal.shellArguments |
["-l"] |
Shell arguments; the default starts a login shell |
Typography and theme settings apply to the renderer while it is open. Shell
path and argument changes apply on the next explicit restart. Cursor
visibility, cursor style, cursor width, ANSI contrast, font weights, letter
spacing, line height, bold color behavior, and scrollback follow the
corresponding terminal.integrated settings.
Limits
This surface is a webview terminal backed by node-pty. It is not a native
vscode.Terminal and does not provide native terminal tabs, command
decorations, command navigation, accessibility integration, persistence, or
native terminal integrations. VS Code extensions that react to native terminal
creation, including automatic Python environment activation, do not run for
this surface.
Terminal names and paths stay tied to their launch directory and do not change
after cd. The extension does not provide splits, terminal renaming, or
session persistence across reloads. Windows and Linux process behavior are
outside its supported platform contract.
Privacy
Simply Another Terminal runs locally. It spawns a shell process with node-pty and renders it in a webview, and it makes no network calls. Your shell commands run exactly as they would in any other terminal.
License
MIT