Quick Cmd — VS Code terminal command panel

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Save, organize and edit terminal commands in the VS Code sidebar. All commands are global, with groups, multiple steps, variables and Remote SSH, without third-party runtime dependencies.

Install and start

Requires VS Code 1.93+. Download a .vsix from Releases and choose Install from VSIX in the Extensions view. Pull request checks also produce a VSIX artifact.

Open Quick Cmd in the Activity Bar.
Choose New Command, then a group. The plus button beside a group creates a command directly in that group.
The editor starts hidden and appears when creating or editing a command. Fill in the name, command text, working directory and terminal usage, then save.
Click a command to send using its saved Enter option. Hover a command to reveal Edit and Run at its far right; right-click a command to delete it from the native context menu, which still asks for confirmation. Edit opens the form without sending. Keyboard focus also reveals the actions. Close the editor from its toolbar — either Done Editing or the × — after handling the draft.
Search with Ctrl+Alt+Q (Cmd+Alt+Q on macOS), then select a command to send it.

The current v0.11.6 release provides a single bilingual installer, quick-cmd-v0.11.6.vsix. It contains both English and Simplified Chinese resources and follows the VS Code display language automatically. Change the display language and reload VS Code to update the interface. Other display languages fall back to English. The extension identity remains smallfishworld.vscode-quick-cmd. User-entered names, Shell code and variables are never translated.

Command list

Groups and commands use the same theme foreground, without command counts. Names and previews share the VS Code UI font and weight; commands are one pixel smaller than the host and groups are two pixels larger. quickCmd.listFontSize=0 follows the host; positive values customize the command size (10–18 px).
An expanded group draws a vertical indent guide under its collapse arrow, so the command column stays visible.
Move the command view into Explorer or another container through the native view title Move View menu. Sizing only affects this extension.
The list starts directly at group → command. All commands use config.json in the extension-specific global storage directory, without project/global root nodes.
Drag groups or commands to reorder; drop a command onto a group to append it. Drop a group onto empty list space to move it to the end.
A move retains selection and offers Undo. Undo refuses to overwrite subsequent configuration changes.
Right-click a command or group to open a native menu beside the pointer, with duplication, deletion, movement and keybinding actions. Command deletion lives here rather than on the row. Import/export remain in the top-right toolbar.
Running status takes precedence over a custom icon. Unknown status is explicitly reported; sending text is not treated as successful execution.

Editor

The top-right toolbar provides New Group, New Command, Search, Import, Export, Collapse All, Refresh and Settings. Import uses a supported down-arrow icon. The editor stays hidden until creating a command or clicking its hover-revealed row pencil; there is no global edit-mode switch. The compact form reduces padding and control sizes. The editor title bar offers Save and Finish Editing (✓) and ×. ✓ saves the draft and returns to the command list; × asks Save, Discard or Cancel when there are unsaved changes. Both return focus to the command list view rather than leaving you in the terminal.

Protected drafts: switching commands offers Save, Discard or Cancel. Drafts persist in the current VS Code workspace state and can recover after extension reload; they never execute or save commands automatically.
Accurate save state: edits made while a save is pending remain unsaved after that request completes. Save and Finish Editing continues saving new edits before closing.
Persistent footer: Save and Save and Send stay visible while content scrolls. Use Ctrl+S / Cmd+S while the editor has focus.
Wide editor: open the same draft in the main editor area. While it is open, the sidebar mirrors the draft read-only; closing the wide editor restores sidebar editing.
Steps: drag, move, collapse and delete with undo. Alt+Up / Alt+Down inside command text moves a step. Narrow sidebars provide a More Actions menu.
Command text: automatically sized input and common workspace/file variable insertion; optional step names.
Visible common settings: working directory and terminal usage. Advanced settings — expanded by default — contain confirmation, description, icons and environment variables.
Icons: about 30 Codicon presets with previews, plus custom Codicon identifiers. The picker and the command list render from the same Codicon font, so a chosen icon looks the same in both places.
Environment variables: edit a name/value table or switch to JSON; incomplete and invalid input is retained.
External changes: saving refuses to overwrite a command changed elsewhere. Reopen Saved Version in the header reloads it after handling the draft.

Steps and trailing Enter

A command can contain up to 32 steps. Their text is joined with newlines and sent once to one terminal. This is not a workflow engine: steps do not wait for completion and do not stop automatically on failure. Use your Shell's own composition syntax, such as && in a POSIX Shell, when appropriate.

Send Trailing Enter applies to the whole group. Adding, deleting and moving steps preserve this choice. Saving sets intermediate steps' execute values to true and stores the option on the final step.

Disabling trailing Enter does not guarantee that no commands execute: intermediate steps and embedded newlines can still trigger execution depending on the terminal and Shell. Use a single-line, single-step command for prefilled input. Interactive programs may consume later input and are unsuitable as intermediate steps.

Terminal usage

Mode	Behavior
New terminal each time	Default; creates a dedicated terminal and retains earlier output
Prefer an idle dedicated terminal	Reuses only when Shell Integration confirms idle, no input is staged, and the actual directory and expanded environment match; otherwise creates a new terminal
Use the active terminal	Uses its existing directory/environment; rejects custom directory/environment settings and asks when idle status is uncertain

Untrusted workspaces allow editing but cannot send commands. Startup and configuration changes never execute commands. Stop Command closes a dedicated terminal; it cannot stop a non-dedicated active terminal.

Configuration and variables

Commands are saved in a plain config.json under VS Code's Quick Cmd extension-specific global storage directory. The extension picks the location automatically; there is no path setting and no project configuration file. You can inspect or back up the JSON directly. Writes from separate extension windows are coordinated and serialized. Import/export uses strict JSON; comments are unsupported. Exported configuration has this structure:

{
  "version": 1,
  "groups": [
    {
      "id": "build",
      "title": "Build",
      "commands": [
        {
          "id": "debug-build",
          "title": "Build and prepare logs",
          "steps": [
            {
              "title": "Build",
              "command": "cmake --build build -j8",
              "execute": true
            },
            {
              "title": "Logs",
              "command": "tail -f build/build.log",
              "execute": false
            }
          ],
          "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}",
          "terminal": "new",
          "icon": "tools",
          "confirm": false,
          "env": { "CMAKE_BUILD_PARALLEL_LEVEL": "8" }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Variables: ${workspaceFolder}, ${file}, ${fileDirname}, ${fileBasename}, ${fileBasenameNoExtension}, ${relativeFile}, ${env:NAME}, ${input:name}.

Command variables are Shell-quoted automatically. Keep placeholders outside quotes and escapes, for example python ${file}. Templates containing command variables with nested shell expansions or here-documents are rejected; placeholders inside comments are also rejected. Directory and environment values use plain-text expansion. quickCmd.shellType supports auto, posix, powershell and cmd.

Copy Keybinding Snippet creates a quickCmd.runById binding with {"id":"command-id"} arguments.

Ready-to-import command presets

On first launch, if config.json does not exist, Quick Cmd automatically adds the complete 6-group / 43-command preset, choosing Chinese or English according to the VS Code display language. When the JSON already exists, it is never replaced automatically (even when its list is empty). No old database migration or special uninstall data retention is performed. Presets are never executed automatically.

The presets/ folder also contains ready-to-import command collections in Chinese and English: Git, SVN, Linux utilities, C/C++ & CMake, network diagnostics, and Docker. Full Chinese preset · Full English preset · Git-only Chinese preset · Git-only English preset.

Import replaces all current commands, rather than merging them. Export your existing configuration first. No preset command runs automatically. Linux and networking examples target POSIX/Linux terminals such as Remote SSH or WSL.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.