Brain Spawn

Define and launch groups of pre-configured terminals with a single command.

VS Code Extension

Features

• Spawn Groups — Define named groups of terminals, each with its own command, icon, color, working directory, and environment variables.
• One-Click Launch — Launch an entire group of terminals from the command palette, status bar, or the sidebar tree view.
• Kill Groups — Tear down all terminals in a group at once.
• Launch Individual Terminals — Start a single terminal from a group without launching the rest.
• Activity Bar View — Browse and manage your spawn groups from a dedicated sidebar panel.
• Visual Configuration Editor — Edit your spawn groups through a built-in webview UI.
• Workspace + User Scopes — Define groups per-project in .vscode/brain-spawn.json or globally in your VS Code user settings. Both are merged automatically.
• Variable Substitution — Use ${workspaceFolder}, ${workspaceFolderBasename}, and ${env:VAR_NAME} in commands, paths, and environment values.

Getting Started

1. Open the command palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P) and run Brain Spawn: Edit Configuration to open the visual editor, or create .vscode/brain-spawn.json manually:

{
  "version": 1,
  "groups": [
    {
      "name": "Dev Server",
      "terminals": [
        {
          "name": "Frontend",
          "command": "npm run dev",
          "icon": "globe",
          "color": "cyan"
        },
        {
          "name": "Backend",
          "command": "npm run serve",
          "icon": "server",
          "color": "green"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

2. Press Ctrl+Shift+T (Cmd+Shift+T on Mac) or run Brain Spawn: Launch to start your terminals.

Commands

Terminal Options

Each terminal in a group supports:

User-Level Groups

To define groups that follow you across all workspaces, add them to your VS Code settings:

{
  "brainSpawn.groups": [
    {
      "name": "Scratch",
      "terminals": [
        { "name": "Node REPL", "command": "node" }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

User groups appear alongside workspace groups in the sidebar and command palette.

Variable Substitution

Commands, cwd, and env values support these variables:

Keybinding

License

MIT