VSCode: How to run a command after each terminal open?

Question

On Windows I have to run the command start-ssh-agent.cmd on each new terminal session I open. My development environment is VSCode, and I open a dozen new terminals each day. After each terminal open, I have to manually run this command.

Is there is a way to run this command on the terminal each time I open one ?

This may take the form of a VSCode extension, VSCode configuration (settings) or a Windows environment configuration.

Any idea?

Answer 1

On Linux systems you should use:

"terminal.integrated.shellArgs.linux"

On Windows and OSX:

terminal.integrated.shellArgs.windows

and

terminal.integrated.shellArgs.osx

respectively.

If you want to apply shellArgs setting on a per-workspace basis - you can, despite the fact that documentation says:

The first time you open a workspace which defines any of these settings, VS Code will warn you and subsequently always ignore the values after that

At least version 1.42 of VSCode asks you something like:

"This workspace wants to set shellArgs, do you want to allow it?"

See issue 19758

---

On Linux, if you are using bash (default for shell in VSCode), there are some subtleties:

1. "terminal.integrated.shellArgs.linux": ["your_init_script.sh"]
   

   will execute the script and close terminal right away. To prevent this you'll have to end the script with $SHELL command.

   #!/bin/bash
   echo "init"
   export PATH=$PATH:/xxx/yyy/zzz # or do whatever you want
   $SHELL
   

   But that way you end up in a subshell. Sometimes it's unacceptable (Read 1) (Read 2).

2. "terminal.integrated.shellArgs.linux": ["--init-file", "your_init_script.sh"]
   

   will leave you in the initial shell, but will not execute the .bashrc init file. So you may want to source ~/.bashrc inside your_init_script.sh

   #!/bin/bash
   source ~/.bashrc
   echo "init"
   export PATH=$PATH:/xxx/yyy/zzz # or do whatever you want
   

3. And if you already have some_init_script.sh in a repository, and for some reason don't feel like adding source ~/.bashrc into it, you can use this:

   "terminal.integrated.shellArgs.linux": ["--init-file", "your_init_script.sh"]
   

   your_init_script.sh:

   #!/bin/bash
   source ~/.bashrc
   source some_init_script.sh
   

   some_init_script.sh:

   #!/bin/bash
   echo "init"
   export PATH=$PATH:/xxx/yyy/zzz # or do whatever you want
   

   ---

   Outside of VSCode you can do without creating extra file. Like this

   bash --init-file <(echo "source ~/.bashrc; source some_init_script.sh")
   

   But I could not pass this string into terminal.integrated.shellArgs.linux - it needs to be split into array somehow. And none of the combinations I've tried worked.

---

Also, you can open terminal at a specific folder:

terminal.integrated.cwd

Change env:

"terminal.integrated.env.linux"
"terminal.integrated.env.windows"
"terminal.integrated.env.osx"

And even change terminal to your liking with

terminal.integrated.shell.linux
terminal.integrated.shell.windows
terminal.integrated.shell.osx

Or

terminal.external.linuxExec
terminal.external.osxExec
terminal.external.windowsExec

Answer 2

You can do the following:

"terminal.integrated.shellArgs.windows": ["start-ssh-agent.cmd"]

Modified from: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/integrated-terminal#_shell-arguments

Answer 3

I actually found a pretty neat Linux solution for this. It should also work on Windows if you use a shell like Bash. I'm not sure if it's possible using vanilla CMD.

Add something like this to your .bashrc or .zshrc:

#
# Allow parent to initialize shell
#
# This is awesome for opening terminals in VSCode.
#
if [[ -n $ZSH_INIT_COMMAND ]]; then
    echo "Running: $ZSH_INIT_COMMAND"
    eval "$ZSH_INIT_COMMAND"
fi

Now, in your VSCode workspace setting, you can set an environment variable like this:

"terminal.integrated.env.linux": {
    "ZSH_INIT_COMMAND": "source dev-environment-setup.sh"
}

Now the script "dev-environment-setup.sh" will be automatically sourced in all new VSCode terminal windows.