Easy Terminal History

Auto-capture, organize, and replay terminal commands with a single click.

Stop re-typing long Docker builds, kubectl deploys, or git workflows. Easy Terminal History captures every successful command you run, groups it by tool, surfaces your most-used commands at the top, and lets you replay anything instantly from a clean sidebar panel.

Features

⚡ Auto-capture from the terminal

Commands are captured automatically as you work — no copy-pasting needed. Powered by VS Code's Shell Integration API (VS Code 1.93+, works with zsh, bash, and fish).

Only successful commands (exit code 0) are stored by default, keeping your history clean and free of typos.

⭐ Most Used section

The sidebar always shows your top 5 most-frequently-run commands in a dedicated section at the very top — below Pinned items — so you never have to scroll to find what you reach for every day. The count is configurable up to 20.

🗂 Smart categorization — 16 categories

Commands are automatically grouped by their leading tool name:

💡 Terminal Helper

Click the $(lightbulb-autofix) Enable Terminal Helper button in the sidebar header to turn on in-terminal suggestions. When active:

• A status bar item $(lightbulb) Helper: ON appears at the bottom of the screen.
• Click the $(list-flat) Suggest Command button (or the status bar item) to open a ranked Quick Pick of your top 10 commands.
• Selecting a command inserts it at the terminal prompt without executing it — review it, edit it, then press Enter.

📌 Pin your favourites

Pin any command to keep it at the top of the list, across every session.

🔍 Search & filter

Full-text search and one-click category filters in the rich panel view.

▶ One-click run

Click any command in the sidebar or panel to run it instantly in the active terminal.

📦 Command Sets

Group multiple commands into a named sequence and run them all in order with one click — perfect for multi-step deploys or CI pipelines.

🔧 Parameterised Templates

Create command templates with ${VARIABLE} placeholders. When you run a template, you're prompted to fill in each value:

kubectl set image deployment/${DEPLOYMENT} ${CONTAINER}=${IMAGE}

🛡 Secret Detection

Before storing auto-captured commands, Easy Terminal History scans for patterns like GitHub tokens, AWS keys, Bearer tokens, and --password flags, warning you before sensitive data is persisted.

📤 Export / Import

Export your entire command vault to JSON and import it on another machine — great for team sharing or backup.

Getting Started

1. Install the extension — the Easy Terminal History icon appears in the Activity Bar.
2. Open a terminal in VS Code and run any command (e.g. git status, npm run build).
3. The command appears in the sidebar under its category (and in Most Used once you've run it from the vault).
4. Click any command to replay it, or hover for the inline ▶ Run, 📌 Pin, and ✕ Delete buttons.

Shell integration required for auto-capture. VS Code enables this automatically for zsh, bash, and fish. If commands aren't appearing, check that the prompt shows a shell integration indicator (⚡ or similar decoration).

UI Tour

Sidebar Panel

The Activity Bar icon opens the Terminal History sidebar. Groups are shown in this order:

Commands already in Most Used are hidden from their category section to avoid duplication.

Hover a command to reveal inline ▶ Run, 📌 Pin, and ✕ Delete buttons.

Rich Panel

Click the panel icon in the sidebar header (or run Easy Terminal History: Open Panel from the Command Palette) to open the full Material Dark panel with:

• Live search bar
• Category filter chips
• Run count & last exit code badges
• Add command form at the bottom

Commands (Command Palette)

Settings

Requirements

• VS Code 1.93+
• Shell integration enabled (automatic for zsh/bash/fish in VS Code's integrated terminal)

Privacy & Security

• All data is stored locally in VS Code's globalState — nothing is sent to any server.
• The secret detection feature scans commands for common secret patterns (tokens, passwords, API keys) and warns you before they are stored. You can still choose to save them.
• Commands stored in the vault are plaintext. Avoid storing commands that contain real credentials.

Release Notes

0.2.0

• Most Used section: top N commands (default 5) pinned to the top of the sidebar for instant access; commands already shown there are hidden from their category group to reduce clutter
• 16 smart categories: added Terraform, AWS, Azure, GCloud, Rust, Go, Java, Database, Make alongside the original set — all detected from the command prefix automatically
• Skip failed commands: only successful (exit 0) commands are stored by default; toggle with commandVault.skipFailedCommands
• Terminal Helper: a sidebar toggle button that enables a ranked Quick Pick to insert commands at the terminal prompt without executing them
• mostUsedCount setting: configure the Most Used section size (1–20)
• skipFailedCommands setting: opt-in to capturing failed commands if needed

0.1.0

• Initial release
• Auto-capture via Shell Integration API
• Smart categorization (Git, NPM, Docker, Python, Kubectl, Shell)
• Pin / delete / label commands
• Material Dark rich webview panel with search & filter
• Command Sets (multi-command sequences)
• Parameterised Templates
• JSON Export / Import
• Secret detection with warnings

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome at github.com/sammacorpy/easy-terminal-history.

Enjoy Easy Terminal History!