Shell Launcher

Easily launch multiple shell configurations in the terminal.

Commands

This extension exposes the following commands that can be keybound in your keybindings.json file:

• shellLauncher.launch: Display a quick pick that allows selecting of one of the configured terminal shells.

Configuration

Do the following to bind the Shell Launcher command to CTRL+SHIFT+T.

1. Open VS Code and hit CTRL+SHIFT+T, that will open keybindings.json. You can choose another key combination if you have already assigned CTRL+SHIFT+T to another command.

2. Enter the following code to they keybindings.json file.

[{
    "key": "ctrl+shift+t",
    "command": "shellLauncher.launch"
}]

3. Save keybindings.json, hit CTRL+SHIFT+T and the Shell Launcher will open.

Settings

All shells can be user configured in your settings.json file, there is a different key for each platform:

• shellLauncher.shells.linux: For Linux
• shellLauncher.shells.osx: For macOS
• shellLauncher.shells.windows: For Window

When creating a shell configuration, the path to the executable must be defined. Other values are optional and will cause changes in the way the UI elements are presented.

• shell: Path to the executable that launches the shell
• args: (Optional) An array of arguments to be passed to the shell on startup
• label: (Optional) Displayed in the shellLauncher dropdown menu
• launchName: (Optional) Displayed in the terminal dropdown menu, note that this is static and replaces the default terminal name that changes based on the program being run
• cwd: (Optional) A path for the current working directory to be used for the terminal
• env: (Optional) Environment variables to be set for the terminal

Here is an example shell which will launch bash as a login shell (bash -l) on Linux:

{
  "shellLauncher.shells.linux": [
    {
      "shell": "bash",
      "args": ["-l"],
      "label": "bash login shell"
    }
  ]
}