Using command line arguments for Windows Terminal

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You can use wt.exe to open a new instance of Windows Terminal from the command line. You can also use the execution alias wt instead.

Command line syntax

The wt command line accepts two types of values: options and commands. Options are a list of flags and other parameters that can control the behavior of the wt command line as a whole. Commands provide the action, or list of actions separated by semicolons, that should be implemented. If no command is specified, then the command is assumed to be new-tab by default.

wt [options] [command ; ]

To display a help message listing the available command line arguments, enter: wt -h, wt --help, wt -?, or wt /?.

Options and commands

Below is the full list of supported commands and options for the wt command line.

New-tab command

Split-pane command

Focus-tab command

Move-focus command

Command line argument examples

Commands may vary slightly depending on which command line you're using.

Passing an argument to the default shell

To start an instance of Windows Terminal and have it execute a command, call wt.exe followed by your command.

Here's an example of calling Windows Terminal to pass a ping command argument to echo an IP address:

wt ping docs.microsoft.com

Here's an example of calling Windows Terminal to open a new tab with a PowerShell command line, confirming to call the Start-Service command, and opening another new tab with Windows Command Prompt open to the /k directory:

wt new-tab PowerShell -c Start-Service ; new-tab cmd /k dir

Target a specific window

Below are examples of how to target specific windows using the --window,-w option.

// Open a new tab with the default profile in the current window
cmd.exe /c "wt.exe" -w 0 nt

// Open a new tab in a new window with the default profile
cmd.exe /c "wt.exe" -w -1 nt

// Open a new tab in the first-created terminal window with the default profile
cmd.exe /c "wt.exe" -w 1 nt

// Open a new tab in the terminal window named foo with the default profile. If foo does not exist then, create a new window named foo.
cmd.exe /c "wt.exe" -w foo nt

Open a new profile instance

To open a new terminal instance, in this case the command will open the profile named "Ubuntu-18.04", enter:

cmd.exe /c "wt.exe" -p "Ubuntu-18.04"

The -p flag is used to specify the Windows Terminal profile that should be opened. Substitute "Ubuntu-18.04" with the name of any terminal profile that you have installed. This will always open a new window. Windows Terminal is not yet capable of opening new tabs or panes in an existing instance.

Target a directory

To specify the folder that should be used as the starting directory for the console, in this case the d:\ directory, enter:

cmd.exe /c "wt.exe" -d d:\

Multiple tabs

To open a new terminal instance with multiple tabs, enter:

cmd.exe /c "wt.exe" \; \;

To open a new terminal instance with multiple tabs, in this case a Command Prompt profile and a PowerShell profile, enter:

cmd.exe /c "wt.exe" -p "Command Prompt" \; new-tab -p "Windows PowerShell"

Multiple panes

To open a new terminal instance with one tab containing three panes running a Command Prompt profile, a PowerShell profile, and your default profile running a WSL command line, enter:

cmd.exe /c "wt.exe" -p "Command Prompt" \; split-pane -p "Windows PowerShell" \; split-pane -H wsl.exe

The -H flag (or --horizontal) indicates that you would like the panes to be split horizontally. The -V flag (or --vertical) indicates that you would like the panes split vertically.

Multiple tabs and panes

The new-tab and split-pane commands can be sequenced to get multiple tabs, each with split panes. To open a new terminal instance with two tabs, each with two panes running a Command Prompt and a WSL command line, with each tab in a different directory, enter:

cmd.exe /c "wt.exe" -p "Command Prompt" \; split-pane -V wsl.exe \; new-tab -d c:\\ \; split-pane -H -d c:\\ wsl.exe

Pane title

To open a new terminal instance with custom titles for each terminal pane, use the --title argument. To set the title of each pane when opening multiple tabs, enter:

cmd.exe /c "wt.exe" --title tabname1 \; new-tab -p "Ubuntu-18.04" --title tabname2

Panes in the same tab can have different titles, which will reflect on the tab title depending on which pane has focus. To name independent panes, you can set the title after splitting the panes by entering:

cmd.exe /c "wt.exe" --title pane1 \; split-pane -p "Command Prompt" --title pane2

Using application title

To open a new terminal instance allowing applications within it to set the tab title by sending title change messages, use the --useApplicationTitle flag. To suppress these messages, use the --suppressApplicationTitle flag. If none of these flags are provided, the behavior is inherited from the profile's settings. To open a tab with title tabname that will not be overridden by the application, enter:

cmd.exe /c "wt.exe" --title tabname --suppressApplicationTitle

Tab color

To open a new terminal instance with custom tab colors, use the --tabColor argument. This argument overrides the value defined in the profile, but can be overridden as well using the tab color picker. In the following example, a new terminal is created with two tabs of different colors:

cmd.exe /c "wt.exe" --tabColor #009999 \; new-tab --tabColor #f59218

When --tabColor is set for a tab, it is associated with the first pane of this tab. Hence in a tab with multiple panes, the color will be applied only if the first pane is in focus. To set the tab color for additional panes, you will need to add the --tabColor parameter to the split-pane subcommand as well. In the example below, a tab with two panes is created with tab colors specified for each pane:

wt new-tab --tabColor '#009999' `; split-pane --tabColor '#f59218'

Color scheme

To open a new terminal instance with a specific color scheme (instead of the colorScheme set in the profile), use the --colorScheme argument. This argument overrides the value defined in the profile.

cmd.exe /c "wt.exe" --colorScheme Vintage \; split-pane --colorScheme "Tango Light"

Tab focus

To open a new terminal instance with a specific tab in focus, use the -t flag (or --target), along with the tab-index number. To open your default profile in the first tab and the "Ubuntu-18.04" profile focused in the second tab (-t 1), enter:

cmd.exe /c "wt.exe" \; new-tab -p "Ubuntu-18.04" \; focus-tab -t 1

Examples of multiple commands from PowerShell

Windows Terminal uses the semicolon character ; as a delimiter for separating commands in the wt command line. Unfortunately, PowerShell also uses ; as a command separator. To work around this, you can use the following tricks to run multiple wt commands from PowerShell. In all the following examples, a new terminal window is created with three panes - one running Command Prompt, one with PowerShell, and the last one running WSL.

The following examples do not use start to run the command line. Instead, there are two other methods of escaping the command line:

• Only escaping the semicolons so that PowerShell will ignore them and pass them straight to wt.
• Using --%, so PowerShell will treat the rest of the command line as arguments to the application.

wt new-tab "cmd" `; split-pane -p "Windows PowerShell" `; split-pane -H wsl.exe

wt --% new-tab cmd ; split-pane -p "Windows PowerShell" ; split-pane -H wsl.exe

In both of these examples, the newly created Windows Terminal window will create the window by correctly parsing all the provided command-line arguments.

However, these methods are not recommended currently, as PowerShell will wait for the newly-created terminal window to be closed before returning control to PowerShell. By default, PowerShell will always wait for Windows Store applications (like Windows Terminal) to close before returning to the prompt. Note that this is different than the behavior of Command Prompt, which will return to the prompt immediately.