Turbocharge Your VS Code Terminal Game: Meet Terminal Turbo Charger
Author
Joel Reed
Date Published
We've all been there. You open a project in VS Code, and instead of diving straight into coding, you spend the first 2–5 minutes (or longer on Monday mornings) manually opening terminals, cd-ing into directories, running npm install, starting dev servers, firing up watchers, and maybe even remembering which tab is for tests and which one mysteriously runs your background worker.
What if your terminals just... showed up? Ready, named, colored, and already humming along with the commands you always run?
Say hello to Terminal Turbo Charger — the VS Code extension from OpenArc Labs that's now publicly available on the Marketplace.
It's a friendly fork and evolution of EthanSK's solid Restore Terminals extension, but with some fresh upgrades we couldn't resist adding: support for editor-area terminals (because who doesn't love terminals right next to their code?), custom icons, and per-terminal colors so your setup looks as organized as it actually is productive.
Why "Turbo Charger"?
Because this thing gives your terminal workflow a serious jolt of caffeine. No more repetitive typing. No more "wait, which terminal was for the API server again?" Just open your project, and boom — your preferred terminal layout is already there, split and ready.
How It Works (Quick Example)
Drop a .vscode/turbo-charger.json file in your project root (or use settings.json if you prefer), and define your dream setup:
```json
{
"turboCharger.runOnStartup": true,
"turboCharger.terminals": [
{
"location": "editor",
"splitTerminals": [
{
"name": "server",
"commands": [
"cd server",
"npm i",
"npm run dev"
],
"icon": "test-view-icon",
"color": "terminal.ansiYellow"
},
{
"name": "client",
"commands": [
"cd client",
"npm run dev"
],
"icon": "comment-discussion",
"color": "terminal.ansiGreen"
},
{
"name": "tests",
"commands": [
"jest --watch"
],
"icon": "activate-breakpoints",
"color": "terminal.ansiBlue"
}
]
},
{
"splitTerminals": [
{
"name": "build & e2e",
"commands": [
"npm run eslint",
"npm run build",
"npm run e2e"
],
"shouldRunCommands": false // Paste only — review before hitting Enter
}
]
}
]
}
```
On startup (or via the Restore Terminals command in the palette), VS Code spawns everything automatically. Splits appear left-to-right in the order you list them. Icons and colors make scanning your tabs effortless. And if you set shouldRunCommands: false, the commands get pasted but not executed — perfect for that "review before run" moment.
Want terminals in the editor area instead of the bottom panel? Done. Prefer to keep your existing terminals open? There's a setting for that too.
A Few Pro Tips & Gotchas
- New setups use the turboCharger.* prefix; legacy restoreTerminals.* still works for now during the transition.
- If things feel glitchy on startup, bump up restoreTerminals.artificialDelayMilliseconds to 1000 or so.
- Project-specific config in .vscode/turbo-charger.json is the recommended way — keeps your global settings clean.
Get It Now
Head over to the VS Code Marketplace and install Terminal Turbo Charger today:
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=OpenArc.terminal-turbo-charger
It's still early days (install numbers are just getting started), so feedback, issues, and suggestions are very welcome. If you're tired of babysitting terminals every time you switch projects, give it a spin — your future self (the one who wants to start working in under 10 seconds) will thank you.
Happy coding, and may your dev servers never crash on startup again.
— The OpenArc Labs Team