Terminals

[larohndale]

Type: Bug

Copilot runs terminal commands in terminals that are running dev servers so the commands do not get executed causing and infinite loop between trying to run shell commands and interrupting the running dev servers.

Extension version: 0.28.3
VS Code version: Code 1.101.2 (2901c5a, 2025-06-24T20:27:15.391Z)
OS version: Darwin x64 24.5.0
Modes:

System Info

Item	Value
CPUs	Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz (12 x 2600)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: enabled canvas_oop_rasterization: enabled_on direct_rendering_display_compositor: disabled_off_ok gpu_compositing: enabled multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on opengl: enabled_on rasterization: enabled raw_draw: disabled_off_ok skia_graphite: disabled_off video_decode: enabled video_encode: enabled webgl: enabled webgl2: enabled webgpu: enabled webnn: disabled_off
Load (avg)	6, 8, 7
Memory (System)	16.00GB (0.03GB free)
Process Argv	--crash-reporter-id 569f2112-6393-4656-9df1-b5b6ed5e97d9
Screen Reader	no
VM	0%

A/B Experiments

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yijiwantestdri0626-c:31336931

[VaibhavRawat27]

I've seen similar behavior when Copilot tries to run commands in terminals already occupied by live dev processes (like npm run dev or dotnet watch). It ends up interfering or looping because the shell isn't in a "ready" state to accept new input.

One possible fix could be:

• Copilot should detect if the terminal has an active foreground process
• If so, it should spawn a new terminal instead of reusing the busy one

Out of curiosity — have you noticed this happening more with certain terminal shells (like zsh vs bash), or does it occur consistently across environments?

Happy to help test a fix or share logs if that would be helpful!