Claude Code Preview
Render Claude Code responses with LaTeX math, code highlighting, and markdown formatting — straight from VS Code's integrated terminal.
Claude Code answers in markdown, but the terminal shows it as plain text: $$\nabla_\theta J(\theta)$$ stays raw LaTeX, code blocks lose their highlighting, and copying a formula means untangling line-wrapped source. This extension turns the latest response into a live markdown preview — one keystroke, no setup.
Quick start
- Open a terminal in VS Code and run
claude.
- Send a message.
- Press
Cmd+K V with the terminal focused.
That's it. The preview opens beside the terminal and auto-refreshes after every new response.
Keybindings
| macOS |
Windows / Linux |
Command |
Cmd+K V |
Ctrl+K V |
Open Latest Response to the Side |
Cmd+Shift+V |
Ctrl+Shift+V |
Open Latest Response (current pane) |
Cmd+← |
Ctrl+← |
Show Older Response (when the preview is focused) |
Cmd+→ |
Ctrl+→ |
Show Newer Response (when the preview is focused) |
The open shortcuts are active when a terminal is focused, mirroring VS Code's built-in markdown preview keys; the navigation shortcuts only when the response preview is the focused tab. All commands are also available from the Command Palette.
Features
- No setup. Install the extension and it just works alongside Claude Code. No shell hooks, no config files to edit.
- Math rendering. Inline
$...$ and display $$...$$ LaTeX expressions render via VS Code's built-in KaTeX support.
- Auto-refresh. The preview updates itself after every new response — open it once and keep chatting.
- Per-session previews. The extension finds which session belongs to the focused terminal by walking its process tree. Parallel sessions in the same project show their own previews — no collisions.
- Response history. Step back through every response of the session with
Cmd+← / Cmd+→ while the preview is focused — like /copy N, but visual. A new response snaps the preview back to the latest.
- Readable tab titles. Previews are named after the session (its summary, or the first prompt) instead of a UUID.
- Copy code blocks. Hover any fenced code block in the preview for a one-click Copy button.
- Easy copying. Select rendered text from the preview instead of fighting line-wrapped terminal output.
Requirements
- Claude Code installed and used in a terminal (any terminal — VS Code's integrated terminal works best).
- macOS or Linux for precise per-session resolution. Windows users get the most-recently-updated session as a fallback.
How it works
The extension watches Claude Code's transcript files at ~/.claude/projects/**/*.jsonl. When a transcript changes, it extracts the latest assistant response and writes it to the extension's private storage. The preview command resolves which session belongs to your focused terminal (via process-tree walking and Claude Code's ~/.claude/sessions/<pid>.json registry) and opens the corresponding markdown file.
If precise resolution fails (e.g. on Windows or when pgrep is unavailable), the command falls back to the most-recently-updated session.
Troubleshooting
Logs are written to the Claude Code Preview output channel: View → Output → Claude Code Preview. If the preview doesn't open:
- Confirm
~/.claude/projects/ exists and contains .jsonl transcript files.
- Check that the terminal you focus is running
claude (not a parent shell or tmux wrapper).
- Reload the window after install:
Cmd+Shift+P → Developer: Reload Window.
License
MIT
