VSCode extension: add font size setting for chat panel

[FIL033]

Feature Request

Add a setting to control the font size in the Claude Code chat panel (VSCode extension).

Problem

Currently there is no way to adjust the font size specifically for the Claude Code panel. The chat panel uses a font size that is smaller than the editor font, and there is no dedicated setting to change it.

The only workaround is to zoom the entire VSCode window (Ctrl+/-), which affects the whole IDE, not just the Claude panel.

Proposed Solution

Add a VSCode extension setting, for example:

"claude.fontSize": 14

This would allow users to set a comfortable font size for the chat panel independently of the editor font size.

Expected Behavior

Users can configure the font size of the Claude Code panel via VSCode settings without affecting the rest of the IDE.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

[me-at-cz]

Additionally, would be nice to set the font family and be able to configure monospace fonts for inline code, avoiding things like this:

[Youhan]

Accessibility help please!

[VoidCatGames]

Font customization and appearance settings are a must. Please!

[kavyro]

+1

[andrewroxby]

+1, with a concrete implementation note that might lower the cost of building this.

The webview CSS already reads from VSCode's chat-font CSS variable:

body { font-size: var(--vscode-chat-font-size, 13px); ... }

Which means today, users can already get an independent baseline by setting "chat.fontSize": 16 in settings.json — it flows through after a panel reload. (Caveat: monospace blocks inside the panel read --vscode-editor-font-size, so code rides with the editor font, not the chat font. Prose is independently sized; code is not.)

Two requests on top of the original ask:

1. Mouse-wheel zoom in the panel, mirroring editor.mouseWheelZoom — Cmd+scroll to live-resize. Since the CSS variable plumbing exists, this is mostly a matter of binding a wheel listener in the webview and updating an inline font-size override.
2. Apply the size to monospace/code blocks too, either via a second setting or by having --app-monospace-font-size follow the chat-font scale rather than --vscode-editor-font-size. Otherwise the panel renders prose at one size and code at another, which is jarring.

Use case: I read long-form Claude responses in the panel for hours at a stretch and the 13px default is genuinely fatiguing. Whole-window zoom isn't a fix because it shrinks editor real estate I need.

Edit: corrected setting name — chat.fontSize, not chat.editor.fontSize (the latter governs the chat input editor, not the panel body).

[salomonskinoam]

Also required for the plan pane in plan mode. it's so small now