Terminame

Names your terminal tabs after what is running in them. npm run dev becomes Start App, git rebase -i main becomes Rebase, pytest tests/api in packages/billing becomes Billing Tests.

Works on install with zero configuration, in Cursor and VS Code.

Install

Search for Terminame in the Extensions view, or install from the store for your editor:

• VS Code: Visual Studio Marketplace, or code --install-extension GalEzra.terminame
• Cursor and other VS Code forks: Open VSX, or cursor --install-extension GalEzra.terminame

To install from a file instead, grab terminame-<version>.vsix from the latest release and run Extensions: Install from VSIX... from the command palette. npm install && npm run package in a clone produces the same file (needs Node 20+).

Reload the window once after installing.

How names are chosen

1. Editor model — if your editor exposes one (VS Code with Copilot). Not available in Cursor.
2. Claude Code CLI — if claude is installed and you have run /login. Terminame only runs the binary; it never reads your credentials.
3. Anthropic SDK — if the SDK can find credentials on its own (ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, an ant auth login profile) or you set a key via Terminame: Set Anthropic API key.
4. Built-in rules — always available, instant, offline.

A command the shell cannot find (exit code 127, command not found) is skipped: no model call, and the tab keeps the name it had.

Answers are cached per command and folder, so each distinct command in a given folder costs one model call.

A status-bar item reading "Terminame: rules" appears when auto-detection found no model and Terminame is naming tabs from rules alone. Click it to open the log. It stays hidden when a model provider is in use, or when you set terminame.provider to rules yourself.

Commands

Settings

Known limits

• VS Code can only rename the active terminal, so a background tab is renamed the moment you click it.
• Requires terminal shell integration (on by default for zsh, bash, fish, PowerShell).
• If you rename a tab yourself, Terminame leaves it alone until it is closed. One exception: a tab you rename by hand before Terminame has ever named it, while it is not the active tab, can be overwritten once by the first queued rename.
• Windows: the Claude Code CLI lookup does not append .exe, so that provider is skipped and Terminame falls back to the editor model, the Anthropic SDK, or rules.

Troubleshooting

Nothing happens. Run Terminame: Show log. Every command should produce a start line, an end line, and a → line with the chosen name. No start line means the editor never reported the command: hover the terminal tab and check that shell integration is active.

Nothing happens, or only the first command in each terminal gets a name, and the tab tooltip says "Shell integration: Injection failed to activate". Some terminal tools (autocomplete wrappers, shell launchers) start their own shell inside the editor terminal, and that shell never loads the editor's injected shell-integration file. Load it yourself from ~/.zshrc:

# VS Code / Cursor shell integration. Must run before your prompt theme loads.
if [[ "$TERM_PROGRAM" == "vscode" && -z "$VSCODE_SHELL_INTEGRATION" ]]; then
  unset VSCODE_INJECTION
  for __editor in cursor code; do
    command -v "$__editor" >/dev/null 2>&1 && . "$("$__editor" --locate-shell-integration-path zsh)" && break
  done
  unset __editor
fi

Place it near the top of the file, before your prompt theme and before any tool that wraps the shell. Prompt themes that rebuild the prompt on every command emit the editor's markers only when VSCODE_SHELL_INTEGRATION is set at the time they load; with this block at the bottom of .zshrc, the first command in each terminal is reported and every later one is dropped. Open a new terminal afterwards, existing terminals keep the old shell.

Names come from rules only. The status-bar item "Terminame: rules" means no model provider was found. Install Claude Code and run /login, sign in to Copilot, or set an Anthropic key. A model call that exceeds terminame.timeoutMs also falls back to a rules name; three misses in a row disable that provider for the session.

Known issues

• Model answers ending in a balanced ) or ] lose the closing bracket ("Tests (api)" becomes "Tests (api").
• With idleName set to folder or shell and mode waitForModel, a command that finishes before the model answers still ends up with the model's name.
• terminame.aggressiveRename is experimental: not verified against the live editor API, and it can steal focus mid-typing.

Development

Requires Node 20+.

npm install
npm run build        # bundle to dist/
npm test             # unit tests (Vitest)
npm run test:ext     # extension-host smoke tests (downloads a VS Code build on first run)
npm run package      # build a .vsix

Releasing

Bump version in package.json, add the changelog entry, merge to main, then tag and push:

git tag v0.1.1 && git push origin v0.1.1

The Publish workflow builds the .vsix, attaches it to a GitHub release, and publishes it to each store whose token is present as a repository secret: VSCE_PAT (Azure DevOps personal access token with Marketplace Manage scope) for the Visual Studio Marketplace, OVSX_PAT (Open VSX access token) for Open VSX. A missing secret skips that store; upload the .vsix from the release by hand instead.

docs/ holds the original design spec and implementation plan.