Windows Terminal as external terminal does not launch in the workspace directory

[tangmi]

• VSCode Version: 1.42.1 (user setup)
• OS Version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.18363

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Set terminal.external.windowsExec to wt
2. Run "Open New External Terminal" from the command palette

A new instance of Windows Terminal opens, but with the default directory, instead of ${workspaceFolder}.

Windows Terminal Preview 0.9 recently released, allowing a starting directory to be specified with -d <starting dir>.

Possible solutions?:

• Have Windows Terminal respected the current working directory when launched (see: Inherit working directory when terminal is launched via shell or other context terminal#4581), then no action required for VS Code.
• VS Code can add a special case, like for cmder (

  vscode/src/vs/workbench/contrib/externalTerminal/node/externalTerminalService.ts

  Lines 85 to 91 in 997e4ea

  	// cmder ignores the environment cwd and instead opts to always open in %USERPROFILE%
  	// unless otherwise specified
  	const basename = path.basename(exec).toLowerCase();
  	if (basename === 'cmder' || basename === 'cmder.exe') {
  	spawner.spawn(exec, cwd ? [cwd] : undefined);
  	return Promise.resolve(undefined);
  	}

  )

Does this issue occur when all extensions are disabled?: Yes

[MonoLizard]

Will be fixed by #90773, my first pr for VsCode cheers :)

[chriscollinsboxuk]

Does anyone know if the change in #90773 is going to be merged? I'd love to see this issue resolved, as it's the only thing that's preventing me from fully switching over from ConEmu to Windows Terminal.

[Sleepful]

What about linux? Mine doesn't open in the opened project directory either, and I can't pass arguments to the "terminal.external.linuxExec" setting option. For example, with Konsole I would only need to add --workdir ${workspaceFolder} as an argument.

[Tyriar]

@Sleepful this issue's about Windows Terminal, if there is a popular terminal (like Konsole) that doesn't work we can open a new issue and open it to PRs. Here's the relevant code:

vscode/src/vs/workbench/contrib/externalTerminal/node/externalTerminalService.ts

Lines 297 to 299 in 0fc6b39

	execPromise.then(exec => {
	const env = cwd ? { cwd } : undefined;
	const child = spawner.spawn(exec, [], env);