use a different .zshrc for vscode internal terminal

Question

I'm using zsh from vscode integrated terminal

i also use hyper terminal, warp and iterm2 for other purposes but i like to use the integreated terminal while in vscode. i actually enjoy my heavy .zshrc config on external terminals, but i often get the popup "your shell environment is taking too long to load" from vscode. Tbh, i don't mind the popup itself, but i think that a lot of the features that are useful outside vscode are not needed inside.

How can i set a different .zshrc to load only to be used by the vscode integreated terminal ?

tried conditional loading from my .zshrc but don't like it

tried setting it in the vscode-settings.json

1. this self-answer confused me more
2. this i think points in the right direction but i am not sure how to use task.json

my env:

• macOS 13.1 22C65 arm64
• Apple M1 Max
• vscode (1.74.11ad8d514439d5077d2b0b7ee64d2ce82a9308e5a for arm64)
• zsh 5.9 (arm-apple-darwin22.1.0)

Answer 1

These are the settings to change in “settings.json”:
I created 3 profiles:

1. zsh-minimal with the vscode minimal config -> new ZDOTDIR
2. zsh-full with my usual heavy config -> probably not necessary since it is $HOME by default i think
3. bash, just in case i fu everything

set to null old profiles ( zsh and zsh(2)) to delete them from profiles selection dropdown menu, as per official documentation.

“terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.osx”: “zsh-minimal”,
“terminal.integrated.profiles.osx”: {
    "zsh-minimal": {
        "title": "zsh-minimal",
        "path": "/opt/homebrew/bin//zsh",
        "icon": "terminal",
        "color": "terminal.ansiMagenta",
        "args": [
            "-l",
            "-i"
        ],
        "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}",
        "env": {
            "ZDOTDIR": "/Users/MYUSERNAME/.homesick/repos/MYUSERNAME-dotfiles/home/vscode_zsh"
        },
    },
    "zsh-full": {
        "title": "zsh-full",
        "path": "/opt/homebrew/bin//zsh",
        "icon": "terminal",
        "color": "terminal.ansiCyan",
        "args": [
            "-l",
            "-i"
        ],
        "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}",
        "env": {
            "ZDOTDIR": "/Users/MYUSERNAME/"
        },
    },
    "bash": {
        "title": "bash",
        "path": "/bin/bash",
        "icon": "terminal",
        "color": "terminal.ansiWhite",
        "args": [
            "-l",
            "-i"
        ],
        "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}",
    },
    "zsh":  null, 
    "zsh (2)": null,
}

Answer 2

This is an easy solution: Just wrap your .zshrc with the settings that you want to run with inside that "not in vscode" and the one another the settings that you dont want to run or disable in vscode in "not in vscode"

if [ "$TERM_PROGRAM" = "vscode" ]
then
echo "in vscode"
else
echo "not in vscode"
fi