Shell Yeah!
Open a terminal directly from the Explorer context menu in VS Code, using the folder you clicked as the working directory. The extension detects the shells installed on your machine — across Windows, macOS, and Linux — and only offers the ones that are actually available.
Features
- Adds a Shell Yeah! submenu to the Explorer context menu.
- Detects the shells installed on the current machine and only shows those that are available:
- Windows: PowerShell, PowerShell 7 & Preview (
pwsh), Command Prompt, Developer Command Prompt for VS, Git Bash, Cygwin, MSYS2, WSL, Anaconda Prompt, Nushell
- macOS / Linux: Zsh, Bash, Fish, sh, PowerShell 7 & Preview (
pwsh), Nushell
- Each shell opens with its own terminal icon and color.
- WSL is offered only when at least one distribution is installed; if you have several, you'll be prompted to pick one.
- Uses the selected folder/file path as the terminal start location; falls back to the first workspace folder.
- Includes a Shell Yeah!: Refresh Available Shells command to re-scan after installing or removing a shell.
Commands
Each supported shell contributes an "Open … Here" command — for example Open PowerShell Here, Open Bash Here, or Open WSL Here. These appear in the Shell Yeah! submenu in the Explorer context menu, and each one is shown only when its shell is detected.
Shell Yeah!: Refresh Available Shells (openTerminalHere.refresh) — re-detect the installed shells.
Requirements
- Visual Studio Code 1.120.0 or newer
- At least one supported shell installed (most systems include one by default)
- For
Open WSL Here (Windows): WSL with at least one installed distribution (wsl.exe)
How It Works
- On startup the extension scans for installed shells using known install locations, your
PATH, and /etc/shells (macOS/Linux), then shows only the shells it finds.
- Windows shell executables are resolved from
%SystemRoot% (falling back to C:\Windows), so a non-default Windows install location is handled correctly.
- WSL availability is confirmed by checking for an installed distribution (
wsl --list --quiet).
- Each shell launches from a resolved absolute path with the selected folder as the working directory; WSL receives
--cd <path>.
- If a shell can no longer be found when invoked, an error message is shown instead of opening a broken terminal.
Extension Settings
This extension currently does not contribute any user settings.
Known Issues
- Shells are detected when VS Code starts. After installing or removing a shell, run Shell Yeah!: Refresh Available Shells (or reload the window).
- WSL path translation depends on how
wsl.exe --cd handles the provided path.
Development
Install dependencies:
npm install
Compile:
npm run compile
Watch mode:
npm run watch
Lint:
npm run lint
Run tests:
npm test
Run the extension in development:
- Open this project in VS Code.
- Press
F5 to launch an Extension Development Host window.
- In the new window, right-click a file or folder in Explorer and run one of the "Open ... Here" commands.
Release Notes
See CHANGELOG.md for release history.
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