Agent Tabs
Your coding agents, side by side with your code.
Agent Tabs runs Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, pi and other CLI coding agents in tabs in VS Code's secondary sidebar. Keep the editor in front of you, start a few agents on different tasks, and see at a glance which one is working, which one has a question, and which one is done.
Features
See what every agent is doing
Each tab shows its agent's status: working, needs input, done or failed. A result that comes in while you're in another tab stays marked until you look at it, and the view's badge counts the tabs waiting for you. Agents report their status themselves through the Program Status Protocol; for the others, Agent Tabs recognizes their prompts.
Tabs that name themselves
Tabs take their name from the agent's session: Claude Code's conversation summary, a pi session name or a Codex thread, shortened to a few words. No more five tabs called claude.
Every agent, one place
Open any agent from the + ⌄ menu, with its logo. Agent Tabs finds the agents you have installed and makes a profile for each. Profiles are plain command lines, so claude --continue, env MODEL=fast pi or tmux new-session codex all work, and Custom Command runs anything else with completion for its flags.
Works like VS Code
Tabs use the keys you know from editors, clicking src/app.ts:42 in an agent's output opens it in the editor, and the terminal takes VS Code's theme and font. Closing a tab whose agent is still working asks first. When an agent exits, Enter starts it again in the same tab.
Supported agents
| Agent |
Command |
Status |
Tab name from |
| Claude Code |
claude |
Reported (2.1.295+) |
Conversation summary |
| Codex |
codex |
Reported (0.163+) |
Thread name |
| pi |
pi |
Reported (1.1+) |
Session name (/name) |
| OpenCode |
opencode |
Reported |
Session title |
| Grok Build |
grok |
Reported (1.0.52+) |
— |
| Devin |
devin |
Reported |
— |
| Hermes Agent |
hermes |
Reported |
Session title |
| Gemini CLI |
gemini |
From prompts |
Current thought |
| GitHub Copilot |
copilot |
From prompts |
— |
| Cursor |
agent |
From prompts |
— |
| Antigravity |
agy |
From prompts |
Your title script |
An agent is recognized anywhere in a profile's command line, also behind a wrapper such as env, npx or tmux. Any other program runs too, with a generic icon and prompt-based status. Claude Code reports no status inside tmux.
Keyboard shortcuts
Active while Agent Tabs has focus.
| Action |
macOS |
Windows / Linux |
| New tab |
Cmd+T |
Ctrl+Shift+T |
| Close tab |
Cmd+W |
Ctrl+Shift+W |
| Next / previous tab |
Cmd+Alt+→ / Cmd+Alt+← |
Ctrl+PageDown / Ctrl+PageUp |
| Go to tab 1–8 / last tab |
Cmd+1 … Cmd+9 |
Alt+1 … Alt+9 |
| Switch tab… |
Ctrl+Tab |
Ctrl+Tab |
Line editing follows VS Code too: Cmd+←/→ jumps to the start or end of the line, Cmd+Backspace and Option+Backspace delete to the line start or the previous word, and Shift+Enter inserts a new line in agents that support it.
Settings
Profiles and tabs
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
agentTabs.profiles |
installed agents |
Profile names and the command lines they run, in menu order. + opens the first. |
agentTabs.onExit |
auto |
When an agent exits: auto closes the tab after a clean exit and keeps it after an error, or close, restart, keep. |
agentTabs.confirmClose |
true |
Ask before closing a tab whose agent is working or waiting for input. |
Tab names and icons
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
agentTabs.autoTabTitles |
true |
Name tabs after the agent's session instead of the profile. |
agentTabs.tabTitleWords |
4 |
Words in a tab name (1–12); filler words are dropped. |
agentTabs.monochromeIcons |
false |
Agent logos in the text color instead of brand colors. |
Status
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
agentTabs.programStatus |
true |
Show the status agents report. |
agentTabs.statusColors |
true |
Color status icons and the names of tabs that need you. |
agentTabs.promptNotification |
true |
Mark background tabs whose program shows a prompt, for agents that report no status. |
agentTabs.promptNotificationDelay |
300 |
Milliseconds output must be quiet before a prompt counts. |
agentTabs.promptPatterns |
[] |
More regular expressions that match a prompt. |
Process
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
agentTabs.directMode |
true |
Start the command directly. Turn off to run it in a shell, for aliases or shell syntax. |
agentTabs.shell |
system shell |
Shell to use when directMode is off. |
agentTabs.autoRun |
true |
With directMode off, run the profile's command when the shell starts. |
agentTabs.env |
{} |
Environment variables for every tab. |
Installation
Install Agent Tabs from the Visual Studio Marketplace, or run:
code --install-extension patrick-lindemann.agent-tabs
Agent Tabs opens in the secondary sidebar. You need VS Code 1.106 or later and at least one agent on your PATH.
For offline or remote machines, download the .vsix for your platform from the latest release and use Extensions: Install from VSIX…, or run the installer:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/patrick-lindemann/agent-tabs/main/install.sh | sh
Troubleshooting
- An agent shows as not installed: VS Code does not see it on its
PATH. Start VS Code from a shell where the command works, or add its folder through agentTabs.env.
- An agent needs shell aliases or functions: turn off
agentTabs.directMode.
- The terminal stays blank after a VS Code update: update Agent Tabs; its terminal module must match VS Code's version.
Contributing
Issues and pull requests are welcome on GitHub. See CONTRIBUTING.md for development and testing.
Acknowledgements
Agent Tabs started as a fork of Nolikzero/claude-terminal-panel. It uses xterm.js, node-pty, stopword, VS Code Codicons and Lobe Icons; see THIRD_PARTY.md.
License
MIT
