VS Code terminal tab title not restored / not refreshed after window reload

Status Open
Reported on v2.1.241
Maintainer reply None cached
Activity 0 comments · opened Aug 24, 2026

Description

Claude Code sets the VS Code integrated terminal tab title via OSC escape sequences (observed format: <version> <workspace/folder-name>, e.g. "2.1.241 Chanfreau_Lab"). This title appears to be assigned once, early in a session's lifetime, and does not refresh on subsequent prompts/turns.

Two related issues:

  1. Reload Window drops the label. After Developer: Reload Window, terminal panes that reconnect to still-running Claude Code sessions lose their tab title and fall back to a generic label (e.g. "zsh"), even though the Claude Code process/UI is still running normally in that pane. Sending further prompts to the reconnected session does not restore the title.
  1. No per-prompt refresh. In one observed case, a session's tab title displayed a topic-derived summary (rather than the version/workspace format) — but this did not update on later prompts either, suggesting title assignment happens once rather than continuously. Most long-running sessions stay on the static version/workspace label indefinitely, even after many further turns.

Expected behavior

  • Terminal tab title survives (or is re-emitted after) a VS Code window reload, for sessions that remain connected.
  • Ideally, the title could optionally refresh to reflect current conversation topic as the session progresses (similar to how statusLine is configurable) — a terminalTitle setting akin to statusLine would let users choose static vs. dynamic behavior.

Environment

  • Claude Code versions observed: 2.1.239, 2.1.241
  • VS Code integrated terminal
  • macOS

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