Render Claude Code responses with LaTeX math, code highlighting, and markdown formatting — straight from VS Code's integrated terminal.

Claude Code Preview demo — press Cmd+K V in a terminal running claude and the latest response opens as a rendered markdown preview, math and all

Claude Code answers in markdown, but the terminal shows it as plain text: $$\nabla_\theta J(\theta)$$ stays raw LaTeX, code blocks lose their highlighting, and copying a formula means untangling line-wrapped source. This extension turns the latest response into a live markdown preview — one keystroke, no setup.

Quick start

Open a terminal in VS Code and run claude.
Send a message.
Press Cmd+K V with the terminal focused.

That's it. The preview opens beside the terminal and auto-refreshes after every new response.

Keybindings

macOS	Windows / Linux	Command
`Cmd+K V`	`Ctrl+K V`	Open Latest Response to the Side
`Cmd+Shift+V`	`Ctrl+Alt+V`	Open Latest Response (current pane)
`Cmd+←`	`Ctrl+←`	Show Older Response (when the preview is focused)
`Cmd+→`	`Ctrl+→`	Show Newer Response (when the preview is focused)

The open shortcuts are active when a terminal is focused, mirroring VS Code's built-in markdown preview keys; the navigation shortcuts only when the response preview is the focused tab. On Windows/Linux the current-pane shortcut is Ctrl+Alt+V rather than Ctrl+Shift+V, which is the terminal's paste shortcut there. All commands are also available from the Command Palette.

Features

No setup. Install the extension and it just works alongside Claude Code. No shell hooks, no config files to edit.
Math rendering. Inline $...$ and display $$...$$ LaTeX expressions render via VS Code's built-in KaTeX support.
Auto-refresh. The preview updates itself after every new response — open it once and keep chatting.
Per-session previews. The extension finds which session belongs to the focused terminal by walking its process tree. Parallel sessions in the same project show their own previews — no collisions.
Response history. Step back through every response of the session with Cmd+← / Cmd+→ while the preview is focused — like /copy N, but visual. A new response snaps the preview back to the latest.
Readable tab titles. Previews are named after the session (its summary, or the first prompt) instead of a UUID.
Copy code blocks. Hover any fenced code block in the preview for a one-click Copy button.
Easy copying. Select rendered text from the preview instead of fighting line-wrapped terminal output.

Requirements

Claude Code installed and used in a terminal (any terminal — VS Code's integrated terminal works best).
macOS or Linux for precise per-session resolution. Windows users get the most-recently-updated session as a fallback.

How it works

The extension watches Claude Code's transcript files at ~/.claude/projects/**/*.jsonl. When a transcript changes, it extracts the latest assistant response and writes it to the extension's private storage. The preview command resolves which session belongs to your focused terminal (via process-tree walking and Claude Code's ~/.claude/sessions/<pid>.json registry) and opens the corresponding markdown file.

If precise resolution fails (e.g. on Windows or when pgrep is unavailable), the command falls back to the most-recently-updated session.

Troubleshooting

Logs are written to the Claude Code Preview output channel: View → Output → Claude Code Preview. If the preview doesn't open:

Confirm ~/.claude/projects/ exists and contains .jsonl transcript files.
Check that the terminal you focus is running claude (not a parent shell or tmux wrapper).
Reload the window after install: Cmd+Shift+P → Developer: Reload Window.

License

MIT