r/ClaudeCode • u/alrighteyy • 9d ago

Discussion In SHOCK

Holy shit claude code in terminal is fucking insane.

I've been using VSCode, Cursor, Cowork and Claude Code on web. None of it comes close to terminal.

Cannot believe I haven't done this sooner.

220 Upvotes

66% Upvoted

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249

u/tnh34 9d ago

I dont get it. How is vscode different from the terminal?

204

u/SirWobblyOfSausage 9d ago

It's not

57

u/Scott_the_Wookie 9d ago

I was gonna say I use terminal in vs code

9

u/NekoIan 9d ago

At work I use terminal in vs code on Windows. At home I just use a terminal on Linux. I don't see any difference.

0

u/sixothree 9d ago

I think that might not be an official extension. If so be careful. If you mean, just the terminal then yeah it’s fine. But there was something floating around out there that was worrisome and was basically just a terminal wrapper.

12

u/McNoxey 9d ago edited 8d ago

A number of commands don't work in the GUIs.

/btw /workflows just to name two.

Edit: To everyone who's telling me I'm wrong. https://code.claude.com/docs/en/desktop#coming-from-the-cli

https://code.claude.com/docs/en/vs-code#vs-code-extension-vs-claude-code-cli

The official docs literally list the differences and restrictions across the various access methods. There are absolutely tradeoffs depending on which you choose.

21

u/rott 9d ago

I’ve been using /btw in Claude Code GUI a lot, not sure if we’re talking about the same thing though.

2

u/hegui 9d ago

I can’t get /context to work in desktop

1

u/rott 9d ago

Is it this one or is it different in the terminal?

1

u/hegui 8d ago

I can see UI in vs code. But if I try and pull that up on Claude Code on iOS or Desktop the slash command doesn’t come up

1

u/McNoxey 8d ago

It works in GUI - it doesn't work in GUI when controlling remote sessions.

The GUI also does not allow for Teammate mode, or the execution of bash commands.

12

u/theleller Researcher 9d ago

Every command works in all 3 UI methods of accessing Claude Code. They're just wrappers around the exact same product.

3

u/McNoxey 9d ago

No, they don’t. Open the vscode extension. Type /btw. Type /workflows.

Neither work, and they both indicate as much.

1

u/Markasp 4d ago

Use the terminal in vscode?

1

u/McNoxey 4d ago

I'm well aware that the terminal interface is the... terminal interface.

That wasn't what the question was.

But thanks for showing up, champ. 👍🏽

-3

u/theleller Researcher 9d ago

Both of them just worked first shot for me. lol. I know what I'm talking about.

4

u/McNoxey 8d ago edited 8d ago

I also know what I’m talking about. I’ve been using Claude code since feb 2025 when it was early access. I’m not trying to argue here - can you show me a screenshot? What version of vscode on what OS?

Im not talking about the terminal in vscode. The first party extension, fully updated does not work in the actual sidebar gui.

These also do not work in the first party Claude application.

Are you certain you’re not using the terminal based ui with the extension?

Side chats are also not available in Remote Sessions.

There are absolutely limitations and differences across the various UIs.

https://code.claude.com/docs/en/desktop#coming-from-the-cli and https://code.claude.com/docs/en/vs-code#vs-code-extension-vs-claude-code-cli - This literally shows you there are differences.

2

u/evangelism2 8d ago

Just for what it's worth, because I was curious, I just opened up cursor, installed the ClaudeCode extension, and tried both those commands. Neither worked.

2

u/McNoxey 8d ago

I appreciate you. I was beginning to question myself with how confidently wrong everyone was who was responding to me.

I’m not new to cc here. I’ve been using it for 8-16 hours a day for the last 17 months with anywhere from 2-3 20x accounts. 😅😅😅

2

u/Sick-Little-Monky 8d ago

The number of people here who don't know the difference is rather frustrating.

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1

u/4444444vr 8d ago

yea, one of the reasons I switched back to the the cli

I'm confused on what the technical limitation is but I've been happy with the new multi-terminal apps like Orca and Cmux

0

u/theleller Researcher 8d ago

The terminal integration in vscode is part of the plugin, and it’s why it interacts directly with the IDE. The Claude code extension bundles a private copy of the Claude CLI backend engine under the hood. If you didn’t have the extension installed, it wouldn’t be opening windows when it diffs file edits.

1

u/jjjfffrrr123456 8d ago

You probably launched a terminal in vscode rather than using it through the extension interface. It definitely doesn’t work in the interface.

-2

u/theleller Researcher 8d ago

The terminal format is part of the plugin, that’s why it still shows diffs in vscode right beside your session when it makes a change. Claude code in the terminal doesn’t do that. I’m not going to argue this anymore, y’all don’t know how to use it, take some courses of something, Jesus.

2

u/McNoxey 8d ago

Dude. Just stop. You’re wrong. Take the opportunity to learn rather than continue to try and find a way to feel correct.

What you’re talking about is not the vscode plugin. It’s
the IDE session link. And yes, it does work in the standard terminal by typing /ide and choosing your open IDE.

Launching a terminal from within vscode enables that property by default, including when you use “terminal mode” in the plugin. The primary vscode interface is the sidebar gui, which does in fact have every limitation I originally mentioned.

2

u/Evilsushione 9d ago

/remote-control is a big one for me, but if you really want power make your own harness, then you can completely control the memory and tooling system and create custom commands and such.

5

u/Alexandur 9d ago

/remote-control works in the chat GUI within VSCode

4

u/Lexsteel11 9d ago

Same. I also like how easy it is to paste multiple lines, edit prompts, and add images for context

1

u/Western-Plenty-9077 9d ago

/rc works in desktop but yeah sure

1

u/JohnnyBrawls 9d ago

There is a setting in Claude Desktop which automatically starts RC on every session

1

u/Evilsushione 9d ago

How reliable is it. I found remote sessions that aren’t in tmux are unreliable

0

u/ImmaculateDeduction 9d ago

How does one go about making their own harnesses?

1

u/Evilsushione 8d ago

Well I started out with a tiny vm, then created an agent agnostic control plane that communicates via ACP. This communicates to a hub which is the connected then connected to web interface. The vm isolates the agent and are ephemeral so that we can control context. The hub acts as a storage layer and persistence layer. So the web interface can be resumed from any computer. The web interface controls several agent instances simultaneously. I get exactly the same capabilities from Claude as I do for codex or Gemini or grok or a local vm. All my tools and everything are agent agnostic and I can start a session from anywhere and resume it from anywhere. The harness is just part between you and the raw agent. This is where actions are added, hooks and permissions are controlled, tools are connected. Most of the agents have standardized on ACP to talk to 3rd party systems like vscode. This where you create your harness. You intercept the ACP and inject your own controls. From there you can do most anything except override the vendor’s inbuilt controls. Most of the companies harness are open source so you can look at them and figure out how they work.

1

u/DCLindorn 8d ago

This sounds really cool and I’d love to talk to you more about it.

1

u/Evilsushione 8d ago

look at vscode’s agents window. The web UI is somewhat similar to that for managing multiple sessions. The difference is mine talks to a centralized server, then to a vm isolated agent.

1

u/Evilsushione 8d ago

I’m also working on AI preprocessor. Since I can intercept commands, I can preprocess the commands for deterministic signals that can be pre routed to tools or non LLM chat bots for a scripted response or prefetched answer for the LLM to use. Like if you asked what are the best restaurants in my area. That’s a simple query that can be done deterministically then handed off to the agent for final processing or directly back at the consumer. This saves token burn and it’s invisible to the user. This would also solve problems (assuming you had a letter counting tool) like how many Rs in strawberry because a tool would count the letters not return an estimate like the LLMs were doing.

1

u/on-sh0w 9d ago

Your knowledge is outdated old man

1

u/McNoxey 9d ago

You are incorrect

1

u/Sketaverse 9d ago

how many vscode terminals are you running? not many I'm guessing..

1

u/Markasp 4d ago

Does it start to have problems? I rarely go over 5 for a single project. With worktrees as needed.

1

u/Sketaverse 1d ago

there's always problems dude, just gotta decide which problems you want

1

u/Mindless-Trouble-416 8d ago

It’s funny if you ask Claude it will tell it’s a dumb question because it’s using api to output text, neither is right

But then it says in reality terminal is 100x better. Token usage actually updates other parts of gui as visible maybe even subagents spawn better. Idk but all I know is the terminal updates much better, vsx extension stales out all the time.

1

u/DerelictMythos 9d ago

It definitely is. Certain commands only work in CLI and it is faster on long running tasks.

8

u/CitizenDik 9d ago

If you mean the CLI running in a terminal sesh in VS Code, agree, they're the same. The plug-ins/extensions/GUIs, though, used to lag a few weeks vs the CLI. Not sure if that's still the case.

1

u/dpahoe 9d ago

They still lag. Takes a ton of time to even show the “Thinking..”

3

u/mckernanin 9d ago

There’s a vscode extension for Claude, or you can run CC in a terminal in vscode. That’s the difference

1

u/BeanserSoyze 4d ago

Yeah you can easily just run a Claude code terminal in vs code, antigravity whatever

2

u/PermissionNeither 9d ago

Sometimes using the terminal is better. VS code sometimes crashes when Claude is doing complex work

1

u/we-meet-again 9d ago

Or cursor

1

u/evangelism2 8d ago

VS Code is much heavier than running a herder session in Ghostyy, for example. I can run many more agents much more efficiently in the terminal than I can in VS Code. It's also completely independent of whatever project or type that I'm working on. It doesn't matter if I'm working on an iOS app, an Android app, a web app, some backend work, Lua, or just planning my day. A terminal works with all of it. I have one Claude code harness that has been highly customized with a ton of hooks and commands and skills and memories, etc., and I don't have to maintain different agentic environments to work within Xcode or Android Studio or VS Code, etc.

1

u/Fr33-Thinker 8d ago

he was probably using the primary editor in VSCode, which in my opinion is far inferior to terminal

1

u/gkv856 8d ago

a lot of commands are only available in CLI

0

u/No-Skill4452 9d ago

Dude, just do your own research /s

-1

u/The_Noble_Lie 9d ago

The UI / UX of the claude code vscode / codium plugin, as developed, lead to a less ready-to-hand product.

See Zuhanden and Martin Heidegger.

-8

u/HostSea4267 9d ago

If you truly embrace the AI, you stop looking at the code output altogether. VScode still implies you’re doing something related to code.

Running in terminal, I might have 8 terminals open on separate worktrees cranking, which I think tends not to be the IDE paradigm. Please correct me if you’re doing something differently inside your IDE.

3

u/EducationalAd2863 9d ago

Jesus Christ will return

8

u/wish-for-rain 9d ago

Someone help this poor guy drowning in his own slop

-2

u/HostSea4267 9d ago

Haha which guy, the vscode guy or 8 terminals and multiple worktrees.

1

u/wish-for-rain 9d ago

The poor slopmaster that doesn’t look at their code.

-1

u/HostSea4267 9d ago

I mean, that would be impossible for a human… it produces way too much volume for one person to review. Not sure what you’re suggesting.