[BUG]

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
• [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
• [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

When using the Claude Code plugin (latest version) in Terminal mode in VS Code, the tabs now close. Prior versions (I believe 2.1.234 and earlier) worked perfectly fine. This just broke with an update

What Should Happen?

The tab/session that the Claude Code Terminal was is should remain, and be there after a restart

Error Messages/Logs

Why this breaks persistence: isTransient is a documented VS Code TerminalOptions flag whose entire purpose is: "the terminal will not persist when the window is reloaded or shut down and restarted." It overrides the global terminal.integrated.enablePersistentSessions setting (which defaults to true and is unset on your machine, so that setting was never the issue). With isTransient: true, VS Code doesn't even attempt to revive the tab or its scrollback on the next launch — it just drops it, which is exactly what your screenshots show: the "Claude Code" terminal tab is gone entirely and the editor group falls back to the Welcome tab, while the plain WebView tab next to it (unaffected by this flag) survives fine.

This lines up with your report that 2.1.234 worked and the current version doesn't — somewhere between those versions, Anthropic's extension started (or kept) marking the Claude-launched terminal as transient, which silently opts it out of restart persistence.

What you can do about it:

This is a bug in the extension itself, not a local misconfiguration — nothing in your VS Code settings.json can override isTransient from the caller side.
Worth filing at https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues (the bugs.url in the extension's own package.json) referencing that createTerminal is called with isTransient: true, which defeats terminal-mode session persistence across restarts — and that this regressed vs. 2.1.234.
As a workaround, using the non-terminal "native UI" panel mode (claudeCode.useTerminal: false) uses a real webview (claudeVSCodePanel) with a registered WebviewPanelSerializer, which — as your own before/after screenshots show for the other WebView tab — does survive restarts.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Open VS Code
2. Open Claude Code (making sure that it opens in Terminal mode)
3. Type a test question
4. Open Claude Code (this time in WebView mode)
5. Type a test question
6. Close VS Code
7. Re-start VS Code. You will now see the terminal session and any work within it gone. The WebView session is still there

Claude Model

None

Is this a regression?

Yes, this worked in a previous version

Last Working Version

2.1.234 and prior

Claude Code Version

2.1.236 (Claude Code)

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

Windows

Terminal/Shell

VS Code integrated terminal

Additional Information

_No response_