🔧 Integrating tmux automatically in VS Code with persistent sessions

pookdeveloper — Mon, 19 Jan 2026 10:13:43 +0000

If you use VS Code as your editor but rely on tmux as the real source of truth for your terminal sessions, it's natural to want the integrated terminal to always land in the right tmux session — without manual commands or duplicated sessions.

🟢 The "native" solution (the obvious one)

VS Code allows you to configure a terminal profile like this:

// "terminal.integrated.profiles.osx": {
//   "tmux-shell": {
//     "path": "tmux",
//     "args": ["new-session", "-A", "-s", "${workspaceFolderBasename}"]
//   }
// },
// "terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.osx": "tmux-shell"

What this does well:

One workspace → one tmux session
Automatic persistence via -A
Simple, clean configuration
No scripts involved

For many setups, this is good enough and elegant.

🔴 The real limitation

settings.json does not support conditional logic.

Variables like ${workspaceFolderBasename}:

✅ Are expanded
❌ Cannot be transformed
❌ Cannot use regex
❌ Cannot be grouped or normalized

Grouping multiple folders into a single session

Imagine you have several related projects and you want to work on all of them within one shared tmux session to preserve context, panes, and layouts:

fe-dashboard, fe-admin, be-api, be-auth

With the native configuration, each folder forces its own tmux session, even if conceptually they all belong to the same "work context".

You cannot express rules like:

"If the folder starts with fe- or be-, use the work session"

This is simply not representable in VS Code's terminal configuration.

🧠 The robust solution: move the logic to the shell

VS Code injects environment variables such as VSCODE_PID and TERM_PROGRAM=vscode, which allow you to reliably detect when a terminal is launched from VS Code.

From there, the shell decides.

Example using fish:

if set -q VSCODE_PID; or test "$TERM_PROGRAM" = "vscode"
    if not set -q TMUX
        set -l folder_name (basename (pwd))

        if string match -qr "^fe-.*" -- $folder_name
            set folder_name "work"
        else if string match -qr "^be-.*" -- $folder_name
            set folder_name "work"
        else
            set folder_name "projects"
        end

        # tmux new-session -A -s $folder_name &>/dev/null
    end
end

VS Code becomes just a launcher.

The decision-making logic lives where it belongs: the shell.

🚀 Practical benefits

Group projects by meaning, not literal folder names
Reuse tmux sessions even after closing VS Code
Avoid session duplication
Keep panes and layouts persistent
No plugins, no extensions — just tmux and standard environment variables

⚠️ Notes

Applies to the integrated terminal, not external terminals
VSCODE_PID is not a formal API, but it has been stable for years
The same pattern works in bash or zsh

If you use VS Code as your editor but tmux as your session manager, this integration removes friction and significantly improves day-to-day workflow.

👉 How do you manage your terminal sessions across projects?

How to break out of the forEach in Javascript/NodeJS

pookdeveloper — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 08:39:07 +0000

It’s simple.

Use “some” or “every” instead of “forEach”

Use of Array.prototype.some

The some() method checks if at least one element of the array meets the condition implemented by the function provided.

Example:

The result should look like:

1
2
"Result:" true

More info: https://developer.mozilla.org/es/docs/Web/JavaScript/Referencia/Objetos_globales/Array/some

Use of Array.prototype.every

The every() method returns a Boolean, true if all the elements in the array pass the condition implemented by the given function and false if one does not fulfill it.