Focus view in Claude Code for VS Code: read replies, not tool calls

Focus view, in Claude Code's VS Code extension, folds tool calls, their results and thinking into expandable rows. You keep your prompts and Claude's replies, and one shortcut brings everything back.

Claude Code in VS Code with Focus view off and on: the same turn as a stack of Read, Grep, Edit and Bash rows with the reply buried below, versus one folded row with the reply, the to-do list and the Ctrl+Option+F shortcut in view

TL;DR With the Claude panel visible, press Ctrl+Option+F (Mac) or Ctrl+Alt+F (Windows/Linux). It applies to every open session and stays on. The same shortcut turns it off when you want to audit what Claude ran.

Focus view is a reading mode for the Claude Code panel in VS Code. It folds tool calls, their results and Claude's thinking into expandable rows, and leaves what you need to follow the conversation in plain sight: your prompts and Claude's replies. It shipped in v2.1.221.

How it works

Without Focus view, every long turn fills the panel with file reads, searches, Bash commands and their output, and the reply you came for sits several screens down. With Focus view on, each turn's tool activity collapses into a row you expand with one click when you need it. Nothing is dropped. Only the default view changes.

Result (illustrative, the panel is a graphical UI):

> refactor login to use the new token service

  ▸ (the turn's reads, searches and commands, folded)

  I moved token signing into TokenService and login() now
  delegates to it. The auth tests pass.

  ☐ Update the auth docs
  ☑ Move signing into TokenService

Turn it on

1. With the shortcut

With a Claude panel or the sidebar visible:

Ctrl+Option+F    (macOS)
Ctrl+Alt+F       (Windows / Linux)

2. From the menu or the Command Palette

Type / in the prompt and switch on Focus view in the Settings section of the command menu. Or open the Command Palette (Cmd+Shift+P / Ctrl+Shift+P) and run Claude Code: Toggle Focus view.

The change hits every open session and persists across sessions. It is not a per-tab setting: turn it off in one tab and it is off in all of them.

What stays visible

Focus view keeps whatever needs your attention on screen:

Claude's latest to-do list.
The text a pending question from Claude refers to (v2.1.225 or later).
Live progress rows for subagents, under the tool-call group that launched them (v2.1.269 or later).

When to turn it off

Leave it on for day-to-day work: you read replies, not logs. Toggle it off with the same shortcut when the detail is the job: checking which commands Claude ran before you accept a change, or working out why a turn took so long. If you still run claude in the integrated terminal, here is what the native panel gives you.

Official docs: Use Claude Code in VS Code

Requirements: the Claude Code extension for VS Code, with Claude Code v2.1.221 or later.