microsoft / microsoft/terminal

Add support for roaming settings.json or storing it elsewhere

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#2,933 53 comments 167 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Area-Settings Help Wanted Issue-Feature Product-Terminal
Dominant language
C++
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Avg merge
3d 17h
Merged PRs (30d)
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Description


Note: 📌 Pinned comment: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/2933#issuecomment-536652883


Description of the new feature/enhancement

I have three different computers that I use for work. I keep my PowerShell profile in a GitHub repository and dot source it in my local PowerShell profile. That way I will only need to do a git pull on my profile repository to get all changes propagated on each computer.

It would be great if I could do something similar with my Windows Terminal settings by simply stating in my local settings.json file that the "real" settings could be found somewhere else.

(It could even be that the loaded profile acts like a base for the settings on the computer so things could be overridden, but that is a completely different issue that remains to be opened)

I'm aware that I might have overlooked something here, but would love to start a discussion about this since I suspect that I'm not the only one with this "problem".

Proposed technical implementation details (optional)

{
    "$schema": "https://aka.ms/terminal-profiles-schema",
    "globals": {
        "loadProfileFrom": "C:/Source/git/profiles/terminal_profile.json"
    }

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the pinned comment and the settings.json example in this issue, then review the profiles schema URL to understand the proposed loadProfileFrom setting. The issue does not name source files or tests, so locating the settings-loading entry point and defining override behavior will require project familiarity. Done would mean Windows Terminal can load settings from an alternate location as described.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp
Domain
cli
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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