Smart Terminal Filter

Stop scrolling through terminal noise. See only what matters.

Smart Terminal Filter is a VS Code extension that acts like a smart filter for your terminal. It automatically separates the important output - errors, warnings, your own logs - from all the noise, so you can focus on your code instead of reading through hundreds of irrelevant lines.

Why you need this

Every time you run npm start, python manage.py runserver, or docker compose up, your terminal floods with hundreds of lines you never asked for - Next.js banners, webpack progress bars, Spring Boot ASCII art, npm install logs. The one actual error that matters is buried somewhere in the middle.

Smart Terminal Filter fixes this automatically, with zero configuration.

Features

Intelligent Noise Filtering

Automatically hides framework boilerplate and build system noise across 8 frameworks and 10+ languages while keeping your errors, warnings, and console.log output front and center.

Verbosity Control

A single slider gives you 5 levels of detail:

Command Status Banner

A persistent banner at the top of the panel shows the current state of your terminal at a glance — Running, Success, Warning, or Error - so you always know what happened without reading a single line.

Stack Trace Grouping

Multi-line stack traces are collapsed into a single expandable block with a frame count and source file. Click to expand. Click the arrow to jump directly to the error line in your code.

Error Trend Detection

If the same error appears multiple times across runs, it gets a badge - ↻ 2nd time, ↻ 3rd time - or so recurring problems are immediately obvious.

Framework Auto-Detection

Automatically detects your project type by reading package.json, manage.py, pom.xml, and other config files, then applies the right noise/signal rules for that stack. Supported frameworks:

• Next.js / React (CRA + Vite)
• Express / Node.js
• Django / Python
• Spring Boot / Java
• Ruby on Rails
• Docker / Docker Compose
• Go

Custom Patterns

Add your own regex patterns to always hide or always show specific output:

"smartTerminal.customNoisePatterns": ["^\\[HMR\\]", "^webpack compiled"],
"smartTerminal.customSignalPatterns": ["payment", "order.*created"]

AI-Powered Tools (optional)

Connect Claude or OpenAI or Ollama to unlock three AI features inside the panel:

• Explain Error: plain-English breakdown of what went wrong, why, and how to fix it, with a code snippet
• Summarize: 2–3 sentence summary of the entire run with key events listed
• Ask: natural language queries like "show me slow database queries" or "what caused the crash?"

Standalone CLI

Filter logs outside VS Code by piping through smartlog:

npm start | smartlog
docker logs my-container | smartlog -v 3
python app.py 2>&1 | smartlog --summary

Demo

Error Detection

Success State

Installation

Install from the VS Code Marketplace:

1. Open VS Code
2. Press Cmd+Shift+X (Mac) / Ctrl+Shift+X (Windows/Linux)
3. Search Smart Terminal Filter
4. Click Install

The extension activates automatically on startup - no configuration needed to start filtering.

Opening the Panel

The panel appears alongside your terminal. Run any command and filtered output appears immediately.

Setting Up AI Features

AI features require an API key from Claude (Anthropic) or OpenAI. Your key is stored securely in the OS keychain (macOS Keychain / Windows Credential Manager) - never in any settings file.

Step 1: Choose your provider

Open VS Code Settings (Cmd+,) and set:

smartTerminal.ai.provider → claude   (or openai / ollama)

Step 2: Add your API key

Open the Command Palette (Cmd+Shift+P) and run:

Smart Terminal: Set AI API Key

A password input box will appear. Paste your key and press Enter. Done.

Where to get API keys:

• Claude: console.anthropic.com → API Keys
• OpenAI: platform.openai.com/api-keys
• Ollama: No key needed. Just set the provider to ollama and make sure Ollama is running locally.

Removing your API key

Smart Terminal: Clear AI API Key

All Commands

Configuration Reference

Languages & Frameworks Supported

Noise filtering for: JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Ruby, Java, Go, Rust, C#, PHP, Docker

Stack trace detection for: Node.js, Python, Ruby, Java, Go, Rust, C#, PHP

Framework presets for: Next.js, React (CRA/Vite), Express, Django, Spring Boot, Rails, Docker, Go

Privacy

• Your logs never leave your machine unless you explicitly use an AI feature
• AI features send only the relevant error lines and stack trace to the API — not your full log history
• API keys are stored in the OS keychain, not in VS Code settings or any file

License

MIT