Integrated Terminal Mastery
VS Code's integrated terminal eliminates context-switching. You can run scripts, manage Git, install packages, and debug — all without leaving the editor.
1Opening & Managing Terminals
Press Ctrl+` to toggle the terminal panel. Create a new terminal with Ctrl+Shift+`. Rename terminals by right-clicking the tab. Split the terminal horizontally with the split icon, or press Ctrl+Shift+5.
2Setting Your Default Shell
// Windows — use PowerShell 7 "terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.windows": "PowerShell", // macOS — use zsh "terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.osx": "zsh", // Linux — use bash "terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.linux": "bash"
3Terminal Profiles & Custom Shells
Create multiple named terminal profiles for different shells (bash, fish, PowerShell, WSL, Git Bash). Each can have its own icon, colour, and environment variables. Useful for keeping a deploy shell separate from your dev shell.
4Useful Terminal Features
- Click to open files — ctrl-click a file path in terminal output to open it in the editor
- Copy on select — enable
terminal.integrated.copyOnSelection - Shell integration — enables command decorations, run-in-terminal, and sticky scroll
- Terminal tabs — rename and reorder tabs via the panel header
5Running Tasks from the Terminal
Right-click any npm script in package.json to run it from the built-in script runner, or press Ctrl+Shift+B to run the default build task. Output streams directly to a dedicated terminal instance.
Ctrl+` Toggle terminal Ctrl+Shift+` New terminal Ctrl+Shift+5 Split terminal Ctrl+PageUp/Dn Switch terminal tab Ctrl+C Kill current process