vsTerm — Serial Terminal for VS Code

A full-featured serial terminal extension for Visual Studio Code. Connect to serial devices directly from your editor with multi-format display, session management, and more.

Inspiration

This project is inspired by HTerm, a popular Windows serial terminal application by Tobias Hammer. vsTerm brings a similar feature set directly into VS Code, so you can monitor and communicate with serial devices without leaving your editor.

Screenshots

Terminal & Multi-Session Tabs

Connect to multiple serial devices simultaneously, each in its own tab with isolated state.

Connection Settings & Hardware Flow Control

Configure serial port, baud rate, data/stop/parity bits, and toggle DTR/RTS with real-time line status.

Multi-Format Data Display

View incoming data simultaneously as text, HEX, decimal, and binary with per-byte cell rendering.

Sequence Highlighting

Match incoming data against saved sequences in real-time with the Seq format toggle.

Features

• Serial connection — connect to any serial port with configurable baud rate (auto-detect supported), data bits, stop bits, parity, and flow control
• Multi-format display — view incoming data as ASCII/UTF-8 text, HEX, decimal, or binary, with configurable bytes-per-line
• ANSI color support — full parsing of ANSI/VT100 escape sequences for colored terminal output
• Multi-session tabs — open multiple serial connections simultaneously, each with its own isolated state
• Sequence manager — save, organize, and send predefined byte sequences or text commands; import/export sequences to file
• Hardware flow control — manual DTR/RTS toggle with real-time CTS/DSR/DCD/RI line status display
• Timestamps — optional per-line timestamps with configurable format
• Counters — live TX/RX byte and message counters
• Logging — export terminal output to file; persistent log option to retain data across sessions
• Auto-reconnect — automatically reconnect when a device disconnects unexpectedly
• Send formats — send data as text, HEX bytes, decimal, or binary
• Configurable — font family, font size, baud rate, newline characters, and timestamp format via VS Code settings

Installation

From VSIX

code --install-extension vsterm-1.0.0.vsix

From source

git clone https://github.com/lumascet/vsTerm.git
cd vsterm-vscode
npm install
npm run compile
npx vsce package
code --install-extension vsterm-1.0.0.vsix

Usage

1. Open the vsTerm panel from the bottom panel bar (look for the plug icon)
2. Select a serial port and baud rate
3. Click Connect
4. Use the sidebar tabs to switch between Connection, Sequences, and Display settings
5. Click + New Session to open additional serial connections in separate tabs

Extension Settings

Setting	Default	Description
vsterm.defaultBaudRate	115200	Default baud rate for new connections
vsterm.defaultNewline	\r\n	Newline character(s) appended when sending
vsterm.fontFamily	(editor font)	Terminal font family
vsterm.fontSize	(editor size)	Terminal font size in px
vsterm.timestampFormat	HH:mm:ss.SSS	Timestamp format string

License

Boost Software License 1.0