Make a keybinding to run previous or last shell commands

by

With vscode v1.69 and shell integration enabled, there is now a built-in command to do this (for supported shells).

  1. Eanble the setting Terminal > Integrated > Shell Integration: Enabled
  2. Set a shortcut for the command Terminal: Run Recent Command from the Keyboard Shortcuts editor.

You should end up with a keybinding like this (in your keybindings.json):

{
  "key": "alt+x",         // whatever you chose as a keybinding
  "command": "workbench.action.terminal.runRecentCommand"
}

Supported shells are limited to Windows: pwsh and Linux/Mac: bash, pwsh and zsh.

This setting applies only when terminals are created, so you will need
to restart your terminals for it to take effect.

Also see https://stackoverflow.com/a/70900927/836330 for how to see a QuickPick of recent terminal commands (in preview as of v1.64) for certain supported shells and OS’s.

I came up with this keybinding:

{
  "key": "alt+x",

  "command": "workbench.action.terminal.sendSequence",
      
  "args": { "text": "\u001b[A\u000d" }
},

  1. \u001b is an escape sequence to indicate the following characters have special meaning.

  2. [A is an up arrow. See, e.g., xterm function keys:

    Cursor Up    | CSI A
Cursor Down  | CSI B
Cursor Right | CSI C
Cursor Left  | CSI D

(the “CSI” refers to ESC or \u001b or followed by a [ and stands for “Control Sequence Introducer” (CSI is 0x9b).)

So “CSI A” is \u001b[A which is equal to an up arrow which should cycle your terminal command list to the previous command.

  1. \u000d is a return, so the command runs immediately.

Now Alt–x or whatever keybinding you choose will run the last shell command used, focus can be in the editor or the terminal.

For fun I put together this command:

"args": { "text": "\u0012watch\u001b[1;5C" }

That will send a Ctrl–R to the terminal which searches previous commands.

Then it will search for “watch“, and then Ctrl–rightArrow to go to the end of “watch” where you could modify arguments if need be.

Or skip the Ctrl–rightArrow part (\u001b[1;5C) and do a return (\u000d) to run the command that was found anywhere in your history. Obviously, you will need a unique search term for that to work.

[Tested in powershell and git bash. Not tested elsewhere.]

More Related Contents:

  1. Visual studio code cmd error: Cannot be loaded because running scripts is disabled on this system
  2. How can I start Powershell script as noprofile in Visual Studio Code
  3. How can I shuffle the lines of a text file on the Unix command line or in a shell script?
  4. Getting the last argument passed to a shell script
  5. What is the difference between $@ and $* in shell scripts?
  6. How/When does Execute Shell mark a build as failure in Jenkins?
  7. Remove duplicate lines without sorting [duplicate]
  8. VSCode: enable or disable editor tabs modified since last git commit, show git status with modified tabs colors
  9. Run java jar file on a server as background process
  10. How does the #! shebang work?
  11. VSCode Change Default Terminal
  12. How can I negate the return-value of a process?
  13. Passing argument containing space in shell script
  14. Unix find command, what are the {} and \; for?
  15. How can I check the version of sed in OS X?
  16. How to exclude this / current / dot folder from find “type d”
  17. Losing newline after assigning grep result to a shell variable
  18. How do you determine which formatter is being used for VS Code?
  19. \r character in shell script
  20. in mac always getting zsh: command not found: [closed]
  21. How to Setup VS Code For C++ 14 /C ++17
  22. Ansible Command module says that ‘|’ is illegal character
  23. Is there a “standard” format for command line/shell help text?
  24. Write byte at address (hexedit/modify binary from the command line)
  25. sh read command eats backslashes in input?
  26. Redirecting/storing output of shell into GDB variable?
  27. How do I determine if a web page exists with shell scripting?
  28. Pass groovy variable to shell script
  29. Awk replace a column with its hash value
  30. Call a Unix Script from Excel Vba

Leave a Comment