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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?

Answers

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