VS Code's Run Recent Command list, in a new window on my laptop. Note the space before export. The token's a fake.
The top four were typed on a different machine. I'd opened a Debian server with Remote-SSH and put a space in front of the export, so the server's bash would skip it, and it did. The server's ~/.bash_history has cd /var/log, ls -lh and uptime, and no token. My laptop has it, and it's offering to run it again.
The space trick
If you've ever pasted a token into a terminal, someone's probably told you to stick a space in front. bash won't save a line that starts with one when HISTCONTROL has ignorespace or ignoreboth in it, which Debian and Ubuntu set up for you, and zsh does the same with setopt HIST_IGNORE_SPACE. It's the accepted answer on unix.SE, along with history -d for when you forgot.
Both of those only change what the shell writes down, though, and VS Code keeps its own list.
Where it goes instead
VS Code injects a shell integration script into bash and zsh, on by default. Among other things it reads each command as it runs, and a leading space doesn't stop it. When the command finishes, anything that isn't blank goes into a list of your last 100, which VS Code keeps in a SQLite file in its user folder:
- ~/.config/Code/User
- globalStorage
- state.vscdb commands
- state.vscdb.backup
- workspaceStorage
- 1d6fb3dd...
- state.vscdb scrollback
- state.vscdb.backup
That's Linux. On a Mac the user folder is ~/Library/Application Support/Code/User and on Windows it's %APPDATA%\Code\User, but I only ran it on Linux. Cursor and Windsurf (which now ships as Devin) are built on VS Code and keep the same list in their own user folders. I read their code rather than running them, so don't quote me, but the only difference I spotted is that Cursor's bash check doesn't know ignorespace on its own. There, only ignoreboth and zsh get caught.
I tried bash with ignoreboth and zsh with HIST_IGNORE_SPACE on VS Code 1.144.0 on 1 November. Both times the shell's history file was clean and state.vscdb wasn't. A line I'd taken out with history -d was still in VS Code's list too, since that only edits bash's.
To see your own list:
sqlite3 ~/.config/Code/User/globalStorage/state.vscdb \
"select value from ItemTable where key = 'terminal.history.entries.commands'" | jq -r '.entries[].key'
The second copy is the scrollback. VS Code saves each local terminal's contents so it can bring them back after a restart, which is the command plus whatever it printed. It saves the environment that terminal started with as well, so if VS Code itself was started from a shell where you'd exported a token, the token's in that file too, space or no space.
Over SSH, it comes home
Nothing in the command list says which machine a command ran on, so with Remote-SSH, what you type on the server is saved on your laptop, hidden ones included. I searched the whole home folder on the server afterwards, VS Code's own ~/.vscode-server included, and the token wasn't anywhere.
So the copy ends up on your laptop, the one that gets backed up. It shouldn't go any further with Settings Sync, at least: the code saves the list as machine-only, which Sync skips.
Deleting it
Every entry in Run Recent Command has an X, and there's a Terminal: Clear Previous Session History command. Both take it off the list, and neither takes it off the disk. SQLite marks the space as free and leaves the bytes alone, so grep -a still found the token in state.vscdb and its .backup afterwards. Clear doesn't touch the scrollback copy at all.
With VS Code closed, sqlite3 state.vscdb VACUUM rewrites the file, and the leftovers went with it. If it was a real token though, rotate it. That's quicker than chasing every backup it's been copied into since.
Keeping it out
Two settings, the first for the command list and the second for the scrollback:
"terminal.integrated.shellIntegration.history":
0,
"terminal.integrated.enablePersistentSessions":
false
The second one means your terminals don't come back after a restart. With both on a fresh profile, the token wasn't anywhere in VS Code's folder. Setting the first empties the list you've already got, but turning the second off leaves any scrollback that's already saved.
Better still, keep secrets off the command line. read -rs GITHUB_TOKEN asks for it without echoing, so VS Code's list gets read -rs GITHUB_TOKEN and never the token.
VS Code does know the trick, for what it's worth. The same shell integration script sets HISTCONTROL=ignorespace for a special case, under the comment # Prevent AI-executed commands from polluting shell history.
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