How to setup custom terminal in Visual Studio Code

If you are a front end developer, you probably have used Visual Studio Code or the insiders edition if you like trying the latest build frequently.

If you press ctr+`and open up your terminal, if you are a windows user, you will be using cmd by default.

default terminal with cmd

The topic today is about how to use a different console than cmd. I like to use Cmder in my windows workstation for example so I am going to use it as my default terminal in VS Code.

wow, a better cmd?! cmder provides much better terminal experience than cmd

It is very easy to set it up in VS Code.

1. Create a vscode.bat file in your cmder path with the following contents:

@echo off
SET CurrentWorkingDirectory=%CD%
SET CMDER_ROOT=C:\Program Files\cmder (whatever your path to cmder in your windows)
CALL "%CMDER_ROOT%\vendor\init.bat"
CD /D %CurrentWorkingDirectory%

2. In your VS Code user settings (`ctrl + comma`), add the following to your settings.json file:

"terminal.integrated.shell.windows": "C:\\WINDOWS\\System32\\cmd.exe",
"terminal.integrated.shellArgs.windows": ["/K", "C:\\Program Files\\cmder\\vscode.bat"]

Add the args to the VS Code user settings file

After these two steps, here is the final look, I think it is way better than the boring cmd, don’t you?

You can check out more details in the awesome VS Code Online Docs.

Which console app do you use in Windows? Leave me a comment if you use something different! Thanks!