Terminal Right

English | 简体中文

A lightweight, zero-dependency VS Code extension that opens a terminal inside the editor area and positions it in a split view — right, left, top, or bottom of your editor grid.

It's built for running interactive CLI tools (such as claude, aider, codex, or copilot-cli) side-by-side with your code, while keeping the default bottom terminal panel free for builds, tests, and other tasks.

Why split the editor

A traditional bottom-docked terminal eats your vertical reading space, making it hard to read long output and code at the same time. Terminal Right splits the editor grid instead, giving you a full-height side-by-side layout:

┌───────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────┐
│                               │                               │
│                               │                               │
│      Your Code Editor         │        Terminal Right         │
│         (Left Column)         │        (Right Column)         │
│                               │                               │
│                               │                               │
└───────────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────┘

The split direction is configurable — right (default), left, up, or down. New terminal tabs join the same split group instead of spawning duplicate panels.

Features

• Real editor terminal. Spawns a native, full-featured terminal directly in the editor area — drag, drop, pin, or group it like any editor tab.
• Four split directions. Open the terminal on the right (default), left, top, or bottom with a single setting.
• First command as tab title. The first command run in a fresh terminal becomes its tab title (e.g. claude, npm run dev), so tabs stay identifiable. Requires shell integration.
• One group, many tabs. Each click adds a new terminal tab to the existing split group — no duplicate panels, no layout churn.
• Four ways to launch:
  1. Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+Alt+T (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+Alt+T (macOS).
  2. Status bar: click $(terminal) Terminal Right in the bottom-right corner.
  3. Editor tab menu: click the terminal icon at the top-right of the active editor tab.
  4. Command Palette: Ctrl+Shift+P → Terminal Right: Open Terminal in Split View.
• Localized. Follows VS Code's display language (English / 中文).

Settings

Customize under Terminal Right in VS Code's settings:

Behavior notes

• The first click splits the editor in the configured direction. Subsequent clicks add tabs to that same group rather than splitting again.
• To split again, close the existing terminal group first.
• For left / up / down, the terminal briefly appears in the active group before moving into the new split — this is expected, since the tab must be focused to be moved.

Installation

Via VS Code Marketplace (recommended)

1. Open the Extensions view (Ctrl+Shift+X / Cmd+Shift+X).
2. Search for Terminal Right by werbenhu.
3. Click Install.

Manual VSIX installation

1. Download the latest .vsix from Releases.
2. Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P).
3. Run Extensions: Install from VSIX... and pick the file.

Local development

1. Clone and install dependencies:

   git clone https://github.com/werbenhu/terminalright
   cd terminalright
   npm install
   

2. Compile:

   npm run compile
   

3. Open the folder in VS Code and press F5 to launch the Extension Development Host.
4. Test with Ctrl+Alt+T / Cmd+Alt+T, or run Terminal Right: Open Terminal in Split View from the Command Palette.
5. Package a .vsix:

   npx @vscode/vsce package --no-git-tag-version