Integrated Terminal

In Azure Data Studio, you can open an integrated terminal, initially starting at the root of your workspace. This can be convenient as you don't have to switch windows or alter the state of an existing terminal to perform a quick command-line task.

To open the terminal:

• Use the Ctrl+` keyboard shortcut with the backtick character.
• Use the View | Integrated Terminal menu command.
• From the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P), use the View:Toggle Integrated Terminal command.

Note

You can still open an external shell with the Explorer Open in Command Prompt command (Open in Terminal on Mac or Linux) if you prefer to work outside Azure Data Studio.

Managing Multiple Terminals

You can create multiple terminals open to different locations and easily navigate between them. Terminal instances can be added by hitting the plus icon on the top-right of the TERMINAL panel or by triggering the Ctrl+Shift+` command. This creates another entry in the dropdown list that can be used to switch between them.

Remove terminal instances by pressing the trash can button.

Tip

If you use multiple terminals extensively, you can add key bindings for the focusNext, focusPrevious and kill commands outlined in the Key Bindings section to allow navigation between them using only the keyboard.

Configuration

The shell used defaults to $SHELL on Linux and macOS, PowerShell on Windows 10 and Windows 11, and cmd.exe on earlier versions of Windows. These can be overridden manually by setting terminal.integrated.shell.* in settings. Arguments can be passed to the terminal shell on Linux and macOS using the terminal.integrated.shellArgs.* settings.

Windows

Correctly configuring your shell on Windows is a matter of locating the right executable and updating the setting. Below are a list of common shell executables and their default locations:

// 64-bit cmd if available, otherwise 32-bit
"terminal.integrated.shell.windows": "C:\\Windows\\sysnative\\cmd.exe"
// 64-bit PowerShell if available, otherwise 32-bit
"terminal.integrated.shell.windows": "C:\\Windows\\sysnative\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe"
// Git Bash
"terminal.integrated.shell.windows": "C:\\Program Files\\Git\\bin\\bash.exe"
// Bash on Ubuntu (on Windows)
"terminal.integrated.shell.windows": "C:\\Windows\\sysnative\\bash.exe"

Note

To be used as an integrated terminal, the shell executable must be a console application so that stdin/stdout/stderr can be redirected.

Tip

The integrated terminal shell is running with the permissions of Azure Data Studio. If you need to run a shell command with elevated (administrator) or different permissions, you can use platform utilities such as runas.exe within a terminal.

Shell arguments

You can pass arguments to the shell when it is launched.

For example, to enable running bash as a login shell (which runs .bash_profile), pass in the -l argument (with double quotes):

// Linux
"terminal.integrated.shellArgs.linux": ["-l"]

Terminal Display Settings

You can customize the integrated terminal font and line height with the following settings:

• terminal.integrated.fontFamily
• terminal.integrated.fontSize
• terminal.integrated.lineHeight

Terminal Key Bindings

The View: Toggle Integrated Terminal command is bound to Ctrl+` to quickly toggle the integrated terminal panel in and out of view.

Below are the keyboard shortcuts to quickly navigate within the integrated terminal:

Key	Command
Ctrl+`	Show integrated terminal
Ctrl+Shift+`	Create new terminal
Ctrl+Up	Scroll up
Ctrl+Down	Scroll down
Ctrl+PageUp	Scroll page up
Ctrl+PageDown	Scroll page down
Ctrl+Home	Scroll to top
Ctrl+End	Scroll to bottom
Ctrl+K	Clear the terminal

Other terminal commands are available and can be bound to your preferred keyboard shortcuts.

They are:

• workbench.action.terminal.focus: Focus the terminal. This is like toggle but focuses the terminal instead of hiding it, if it is visible.
• workbench.action.terminal.focusNext: Focuses the next terminal instance.
• workbench.action.terminal.focusPrevious: Focuses the previous terminal instance.
• workbench.action.terminal.kill: Remove the current terminal instance.
• workbench.action.terminal.runSelectedText: Run the selected text in the terminal instance.
• workbench.action.terminal.runActiveFile: Run the active file in the terminal instance.

Run Selected Text

To use the runSelectedText command, select text in an editor and run the command Terminal: Run Selected Text in Active Terminal via the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P). The terminal attempts to run the selected text:

If no text is selected in the active editor, the line that the cursor is on is run in the terminal.

Copy & Paste

The keybindings for copy and paste follow platform standards:

• Linux: Ctrl+Shift+C and Ctrl+Shift+V
• Mac: Cmd+C and Cmd+V
• Windows: Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V

Find

The Integrated Terminal has basic find functionality that can be triggered with Ctrl+F.

If you want Ctrl+F to go to the shell instead of launching the Find widget on Linux and Windows, you need to remove the keybinding like so:

{ "key": "ctrl+f", "command": "-workbench.action.terminal.focusFindWidget",
                      "when": "terminalFocus" },

Rename terminal sessions

Integrated Terminal sessions can now be renamed using the Terminal: Rename (workbench.action.terminal.rename) command. The new name is displayed in the terminal selection drop-down.

Forcing key bindings to pass through the terminal

While focus is in the integrated terminal, many key bindings won't work because the keystrokes are passed to and consumed by the terminal itself. The terminal.integrated.commandsToSkipShell setting can be used to get around this. It contains an array of command names whose key bindings skip processing by the shell and instead be processed by the Azure Data Studio key binding system. By default this includes all terminal key bindings in addition to a select few commonly used key bindings.