VS Code: Add a slash command / hot key for creating a new chat
Resolved 💬 2 comments Opened Apr 12, 2026 by robgraeber Closed Apr 12, 2026
💡 Likely answer: A maintainer (etraut-openai, contributor)
responded on this thread — see the highlighted reply below.
What variant of Codex are you using?
VS Code extension
What feature would you like to see?
Currently AFAIK the only way to start a new chat in the VS Code extension is to click the "New Chat" icon in the top right (or hit the back button). What would be nice is a hot key or slash command to create a new chat via keyboard so we don't have to reach for our mouse every time.
<img width="429" height="876" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/a3b5e113-a50e-43ad-a200-1cc5ceb8d992" />
Additional information
_No response_
2 Comments
There's a command "New Thread in Codex Sidebar" that you can use to create a new chat. By default, it uses Cmd+N on Mac (Ctrl+N on Windows and Linux), but you can change the key binding if you'd like.
<img width="610" height="196" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/66d69a00-747f-4edd-9743-e46503aa7ac3" />
Thanks @etraut-openai