Elve Terminal

A powerful terminal panel for Visual Studio Code — tabs, split views, per-directory history, themes, and aliases, all living right next to your Terminal, Output, and Problems panels.

Features

Tabs

A collapsible sidebar on the left lists all your open terminal tabs. Hover to expand it, click a tab to switch, and use the + row at the bottom to open a new one. Each tab tracks its current directory and updates its label automatically.

Split Views

Right-click anywhere in the terminal to split horizontally or vertically. Each pane runs its own independent shell session and tracks its own working directory. Drag the divider between panes to resize them. Click anywhere in a pane — including on terminal text — to focus it. The history panel updates instantly to reflect that pane's directory.

Per-Directory History

Elve reads history directly from the shell — no parallel writes, no duplicates.

• If a .history file exists in the current directory, Elve reads that (written by your shell via PROMPT_COMMAND).
• Otherwise it falls back to ~/.bash_history.
• History is deduplicated and capped at 60 most-recent unique commands.
• The history panel refreshes automatically whenever you press Enter, switch panes, or change directory.
• In split view, each pane shows its own history based on its own current directory — independently.
• External terminals that write to ~/.bash_history are picked up within 20 seconds.

Click the History button (⟳) in the panel header to open the history sidebar. Clicking a command in the list runs it immediately.

Use Menu → Create history file to create a .history file in the focused pane's current directory. On first launch, Elve automatically installs a shell hook into /etc/profile.d/elve-history.sh (requires passwordless sudo) that wires PROMPT_COMMAND to switch HISTFILE based on whether a .history file exists in the current directory.

Panel Header Buttons

All controls live in the VS Code panel header — no extra toolbar cluttering your terminal space:

Themes

Choose from VSCode (follows your editor theme), GitHub Dark, Dracula, Monokai, Solarized Dark, or Nord. Customise hue, brightness, saturation, and opacity independently.

Aliases

Open Menu → Aliases to manage shell aliases. Aliases from your .bashrc / .zshrc are automatically detected and shown. Save to apply them in every open session.

Settings

Font family, size, theme, and all visual options are in Menu → Settings. There is also an optional bottom input box that lets you type commands without clicking into the terminal first.

Right-Click Menu

Right-clicking in the terminal shows quick actions: Copy, Paste, Split, and — when text is selected — one-click installs via pacman, yay, apt-get, dnf, or a web search.

Keyboard Shortcut

Requirements

• VS Code 1.80+
• Node.js 18+ (for the extension host — already bundled with VS Code)
• A POSIX shell (bash or zsh) — Windows support via PowerShell
• Passwordless sudo recommended for automatic shell hook installation

Setup: Per-Directory History

On first launch Elve tries to write /etc/profile.d/elve-history.sh via sudo tee. This installs a PROMPT_COMMAND hook that automatically switches HISTFILE between a local .history file (if one exists in the current directory) and ~/.bash_history.

If passwordless sudo is not available, you can add the snippet manually to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc:

# elve-history-hook
set_project_history() {
  if [ -f ".history" ]; then
    export HISTFILE="$(pwd)/.history"
  else
    export HISTFILE="$HOME/.bash_history"
  fi
  history -a
  history -c
  history -r
}
PROMPT_COMMAND="set_project_history"

Then use Menu → Create history file inside Elve to create a .history file in any project directory you want isolated history for.

Tips

• Add .history to your global .gitignore to avoid committing per-directory history files.
• Right-click the 🔒 button to update a saved password.
• The tab sidebar collapses to a thin 28 px rail — hover to peek, click the › button to hide it fully.
• In split view, click anywhere in a pane (even on text) to switch focus and update the history panel.