The Right Terminal 🚀

An elegant, zero-dependency VS Code extension that launches a dedicated, fully-featured terminal inside your Editor Area and automatically positions it on the right side of your editor grid.

Perfect for running interactive CLI-based AI coding companions (such as aider, llm, gpt-cli, or copilot-cli) side-by-side with your source code, while keeping your default bottom terminal panel completely free for builds, tests, and other tasks!

The Side-by-Side Advantage 💡

Traditional bottom-docked terminals compress your vertical reading space, making it difficult to read long terminal outputs and code files at the same time. The Right Terminal splits your editor grid vertically, providing a spacious, full-height side-by-side layout:

┌───────────────────────────────┬───────────────────────────────┐
│                               │                               │
│                               │                               │
│       Your Code Editor        │      The Right Terminal       │
│        (Left Column)          │        (Right Column)         │
│                               │                               │
│                               │                               │
└───────────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────┘

This layout mimics the modern, popular workspace structure of high-end AI editors, but works natively with your existing VS Code theme, keybindings, and extensions!

Core Features ✨

📂 Real Editor Terminal: Spawns a native, fully-featured terminal directly inside your editor area, allowing you to drag, drop, pin, or group it like any editor tab. Supports a seamless Show/Hide Toggle that completely hides the window while preserving all running CLI states.
⚡ 3 Quick Launch Entrypoints:
1. Keyboard Shortcut: Toggle the terminal instantly using Ctrl+Cmd+T (macOS) or Ctrl+Alt+T (Windows/Linux).
2. Status Bar Shortcut: Click the Right Terminal button in the bottom-right status bar (which dynamically updates to Right Terminal (Running) to show when the terminal is active in the background).
3. Editor Tab Menu Button: Click the terminal icon ($(terminal)) in the top-right menu of your active editor tab.
⚙️ Auto-Run Commands: Configure a default CLI tool (like aider or llm) to start automatically upon fresh terminal creation.
🎯 Preserve Focus: Toggle cursor focus retention so you can open or show the terminal while immediately typing in your active code file.
🧹 Clear on Launch: Optional setting to auto-clear the terminal screen before executing your default startup command.

Configuration Recipes for AI CLIs 🤖

Configure The Right Terminal to automatically launch your favorite AI companion. Open your settings.json and add one of these recipes:

1. Aider AI Coding Assistant

Runs Aider automatically in the right column on launch:

"theRightTerminal.defaultCommand": "aider",
"theRightTerminal.terminalName": "Aider Companion",
"theRightTerminal.preserveFocus": true

2. LLM CLI (by Simon Willison)

Ideal for quick, one-off AI queries:

"theRightTerminal.defaultCommand": "llm chat",
"theRightTerminal.terminalName": "AI Chat",
"theRightTerminal.preserveFocus": false

3. GitHub Copilot CLI

Quick command-line explanations:

"theRightTerminal.defaultCommand": "gh copilot suggest",
"theRightTerminal.terminalName": "Copilot CLI"

Extension Settings ⚙️

Customize the extension inside VS Code's settings under The Right Terminal:

Setting	Type	Default	Description
`theRightTerminal.terminalName`	`string`	`"Right Terminal"`	The visible name of the terminal tab inside the editor group.
`theRightTerminal.defaultCommand`	`string`	`""`	The command to auto-run on terminal creation (e.g., `aider`, `llm`, `gh copilot suggest`).
`theRightTerminal.clearOnOpen`	`boolean`	`false`	If enabled, runs a shell `clear` command before launching the default command.
`theRightTerminal.preserveFocus`	`boolean`	`false`	If enabled, cursor focus remains in your code editor after the terminal opens.

Installation 📦

Via VS Code Marketplace (Recommended)

Open the Extensions view in VS Code (Ctrl+Shift+X / Cmd+Shift+X).
Search for The Right Terminal by preepramdev.
Click Install.
Alternatively, view the VS Code Marketplace Page.

Manual VSIX Installation

Download the latest .vsix release file.
Open VS Code and launch the Command Palette (Cmd+Shift+P / Ctrl+Shift+P).
Select Extensions: Install from VSIX... and choose the downloaded file.

Contributing & Local Development 🛠️

Want to customize, improve, or build the extension locally?

Clone the repository and install devDependencies:
```
npm install
```
Compile and compile types:
```
npm run compile
```
Open the repository folder in VS Code and press F5 to launch the Extension Development Host debug window.
Open the Command Palette inside the debug window and select Open Terminal on the Right to test.
Package the extension into a shareable .vsix file locally:
```
npx @vscode/vsce package --no-git-tag-version
```

License 📄

This project is open-source and licensed under the MIT License.

The Right Terminal

preepramdev