[FEATURE] Add max line-length option for chat responses in VS Code extension

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing requests and this feature hasn't been requested yet
• [x] This is a single feature request (not multiple features)

Problem Statement

The Claude Code VS Code extension renders chat responses at the full width of the chat panel. On wide monitors, or when the panel is docked to fill the editor area, lines of prose stretch well past a comfortable reading measure (often 120+ characters).

Long prose lines are harder to read and track across than code, yet VS Code already gives users line-length affordances for code documents (editor.wordWrapColumn, editor.rulers) — the chat panel has no equivalent. Users who dock the chat panel wide for code visibility are forced to choose between panel width and readable response width.

Proposed Solution

Add a setting that caps the rendered line length of assistant responses independently of the panel's viewport width.

Suggested:

claudeCode.chat.maxLineLength (number; default e.g. 80, or 0 for unlimited)
Responses wrap at that column regardless of how wide the chat panel is, with the remaining horizontal space left as margin. This mirrors the precedent VS Code already sets for code (editor.wordWrapColumn) and brings the same reading-comfort affordance to conversational text.

Alternative Solutions

Apply a max-width (in ch units) to the response container via CSS, with no user-facing setting — pick a sensible default (e.g. 80ch) and ship it as the built-in behavior. Simpler to implement, no configuration surface, but removes user control.

A middle-ground option: ship a sensible default max-width and expose a single toggle (claudeCode.chat.constrainLineLength: boolean) rather than a numeric column setting.

Priority

High - Significant impact on productivity

Feature Category

Configuration and settings

Use Case Example

I dock the Claude Code chat panel on the right side of a 34" ultrawide monitor, sized wide enough to comfortably show code diffs and file trees the assistant references. When the assistant responds with a few paragraphs of prose — explaining an approach, summarizing a diff, walking through a decision — each line runs 140–180 characters wide. My eyes have to track much farther between line breaks than in any editor buffer (which I have capped at 100), and reading fatigue sets in noticeably faster than reading the same content in a markdown preview or a properly-styled doc.

I don't want to narrow the panel, because the panel width is tuned for the code context the assistant surfaces. I just want the prose inside it to wrap at a comfortable measure.

Additional Context

VS Code precedent: editor.wordWrap, editor.wordWrapColumn, editor.rulers — all acknowledge that line length is a reading-comfort concern users want to control.
Typography research consistently puts the comfortable reading measure at roughly 45–75 characters per line for prose; 80 is already generous.
Markdown preview in VS Code (and most docs tooling) applies a max-width to rendered content for this reason.
This is purely a rendering concern — no change to how responses are generated or stored.