Terminals and local echo
Open an HQ session in a VS Code terminal, start a new one, wake a team machine, and see what you type at once with local echo.
The person who started a session is the only one who can type in it. Everyone else who opens it watches it live, view only. To work yourself, start your own session.
Open a session
In the HQ sidebar's Teams view, expand a team and click one of its sessions. It opens in a VS
Code terminal named HQ · <team> · <session>. HQ: Attach in the Command Palette asks you to
pick a team and a session.
The first line says whose session it is, and whether you can only watch:
Attached to "fix login bug" (Dana) · view onlyEach session row shows who started it (you for your own), view only when you cannot type in
it, and Codex for a Codex session. Clicking a session that is already open shows its terminal.
Closing the terminal leaves the session running in HQ. Open it again any time.
Start a new session
Press + on a team, or right-click it and choose New Session Terminal. HQ starts a new session on that team and opens it in a terminal. You need editor or owner access to the team and an active plan; when the team is at its session limit, the extension says so.
When the team machine is off
A team that is not running shows off in the Teams view. Two ways to start it:
- Wake Team: press the play icon on the team, or right-click it and choose Wake Team. A notification shows the progress, "Waking Backend team (about 15 s)...", then "Backend team is running."
- Open one of its sessions. The terminal says "Backend team is off." and "Press any key to wake it." The next key you press wakes it, and the terminal connects when the machine is ready.
After 20 seconds the progress says "Still on it...". If the machine has not started within 3 minutes, the extension says so; check the team in HQ and try again. Viewers can wake a team too.
When the connection drops
The terminal reconnects on its own and says "Connection lost, reconnecting..." while it does. If it cannot reconnect, it says "The connection to HQ was lost. Close this terminal and attach again."
When a session ends on HQ's side, for example because it was stopped, the terminal stays open with
the reason, and its name ends in · stopped. Close it when you have read it.
Local echo
On a slow connection, local echo draws your keystrokes the moment you press them, before the team
machine echoes them back. It only applies in sessions you can type in. Set it with the
hq.localEcho setting:
| Value | Behavior |
|---|---|
auto | Show what you type at once where the session's prompt allows it, while the round trip to the team machine is slower than 60 ms. This is the default. |
always | Always show what you type at once. |
off | Show only what the session echoes back. |
The setting applies to terminals you open after changing it.
- Your organization has to allow it. An owner or admin turns on Instant local echo in HQ, under Settings, Security. When it is off, the extension says so once and the terminal works without it.
- VS Code has a local echo of its own. When VS Code's own is on for a terminal
(
terminal.integrated.localEchoEnabled), HQ's local echo stays off there, so nothing is drawn twice, and the terminal says so. To use HQ's, setterminal.integrated.localEchoEnabledtooff.
Good to know
- While an HQ terminal is the active one, the status bar shows its team and whether it is running.
- When a session starts a server on a port, the Ports view offers to forward it. See Ports.
- Signing out closes every HQ terminal. The sessions keep running in HQ.