Settings: Terminals · Escouade documentation

The “Terminals” tab of the settings tells Escouade where to find the shells used by the built-in terminals, launch commands, worktree commands, and tests.

Open the tab

Open the settings with Ctrl+, (⌘, on macOS), then choose “Terminals” (“Shells available in the built-in terminals”). These are the app’s settings, shared by all projects; they apply on “Save”. The terminals themselves are described in terminals.

The tab has a single group, “Paths”. Escouade detects shells on its own; you only fill in a field to point to a shell it can’t find, or to prefer another one.

Paths

Under the group’s title, the “Detected:” line lists the shells found, for example “Detected: PowerShell, Git Bash, WSL”, or “Detected: none”. It updates once the settings are saved.

On Windows, the tab has three fields:

Setting	Effect	Default
“PowerShell 7”	The path to `pwsh.exe`.	Empty (“blank = auto”)
“Git Bash”	The path to `bash.exe`, the bash of Git for Windows.	Empty (“blank = auto”)
“WSL distribution”	The name of the WSL distribution to use, for example `Ubuntu`.	Empty (“blank = default distribution”)

On macOS, the tab has a single field, “bash” (“blank = auto”), for the path to bash.

Note

On Linux, the tab shows the same three fields as on Windows, but only the “Git Bash” field counts: it then points to bash. The “PowerShell 7” and “WSL distribution” fields have no effect there.

An empty field lets Escouade search. A path that points to no file isn’t replaced by detection: the matching shell isn’t offered. For PowerShell, Escouade then falls back to Windows PowerShell if it’s installed.

How shells are detected

On Windows

Shells are listed in this order:

PowerShell: the path in the “PowerShell 7” field if it’s filled in. Otherwise pwsh.exe in the PATH, then the PowerShell\7 and PowerShell\7-preview folders of Program Files, then the Microsoft Store alias (WindowsApps\pwsh.exe). Without PowerShell 7, Windows PowerShell (powershell.exe, shipped with Windows) is offered instead, as “Windows PowerShell”.
Git Bash: the path in the “Git Bash” field if it’s filled in. Otherwise the bash.exe in Git’s folder, found from git.exe in the PATH (bin\bash.exe or usr\bin\bash.exe), then Git\bin\bash.exe in Program Files.
WSL: offered as soon as wsl.exe exists. It’s named “WSL”, or “WSL (Ubuntu)” with the distribution from the “WSL distribution” field. The terminal opens in the right folder, in that distribution; with the field empty, it’s WSL’s default distribution.

On macOS and Linux

The login shell (the SHELL variable) comes first if it’s zsh, bash, fish, or sh, then zsh, bash, and fish, searched in /bin, /usr/bin, and the PATH. sh is only offered if no other shell is found. The “bash” field overrides where bash is, except when SHELL already names bash: that bash is then the one used.

Which shell is used for what

The order of the list matters: there’s no “default shell” setting, it’s the first shell detected.

In the sidebar, the + button of the “Terminals” section (“New terminal”) opens a menu with every detected shell: you pick one.
“Open a terminal” (an agent’s menu) and “Open a terminal here” (the editor’s file tree menu) use the first shell.
A launch command or a worktree command has its own “Shell” choice, in the project’s settings (see the “Projects” tab). A new command starts with the first shell. See launch and worktrees.
The Kanban’s “Test command” (the “Kanban” tab) and test launches (testing) also use the first shell.

With no shell detected, the + button shows “No shell found (PowerShell 7, Git Bash, WSL). Check the settings.”

What is set elsewhere

The proxy in terminals: “Also apply the proxy to the built-in terminals” is in the “Network” tab. It also applies to launch and worktree commands.
Claude Code in WSL: on Windows, when the executable path (the “Claude Code” tab) is empty and no claude is found on Windows, Escouade looks for one installed in WSL, in the distribution from the “WSL distribution” field (the default distribution if it’s empty).