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CodeLite 18.5.0 Release Notes

This release covers all changes since 18.4.0. It is headlined by a new Claude Code plugin, a redesigned built-in terminal settings experience, and a large number of UI, reliability, and remote-workspace improvements.

Highlights

  • Claude Code integration: run and manage Claude Code sessions directly inside CodeLite.
  • Terminal Settings dialog: configure the default shell, scroll-back size, and drawing options for the built-in terminal from one place.

New Features

  • Added a new Claude Code plugin that hosts Claude Code in its own tab with a toolbar, keyboard shortcut, and menu entry.
  • Configurable Claude executable path via a new "Options…" dialog, with a fallback to PATH lookup.
  • Remote workspace support — Claude Code can now be launched against SFTP/remote projects.
  • The Claude Code plugin's terminal is fully clickable: Ctrl+Left-Click (Cmd+Left-Click on macOS) any file path, symbol, class name, directory, executable, or plain URL that Claude Code prints, and it opens right inside CodeLite — in the editor, a file explorer, a browser, or via the "Open Resource" dialog as a fallback when the word isn't a direct file match.
  • Tab title and theme changes now follow the Claude Code session correctly.
  • Added a persisted system prompt for Chat AI: edit it any time from Chat AI → Edit System Prompt.... It's applied to every new agent session, and edits now take effect on the running session immediately, without a restart.
  • Chat AI now automatically loads a workspace's AGENTS.md (or CLAUDE.md if there's no AGENTS.md) into its system context as soon as the workspace opens, giving the model project-specific instructions without manually running /context.
  • Added a dedicated Terminal Settings dialog for the built-in terminal (default shell, scroll-back buffer size, safe/optimized drawing).
  • Added type-ahead (incremental) search to tree control panels — start typing to jump to a matching item.
  • Migrated the Remote Directory Control and Open Resource Dialog to wxDataViewTreeCtrl/wxDataViewListCtrl, improving performance, icon rendering, and keyboard navigation.
  • Added asynchronous SFTP directory listing for a more responsive remote file browsing experience.
  • Extended the file system watcher to monitor remote SFTP files (not just local files), so remote-workspace editors correctly detect external changes and deletions.
  • Added support for the LLM "retry" reason in the AI Chat window, with a new warning icon shown when a request is retried.
  • Added a Linux package build target and improved macOS build signing/notarization for release artifacts.

Improvements

  • Reworked how the built-in terminal claims keyboard shortcuts, so application-wide shortcuts (e.g. Ctrl-Tab, Ctrl-`, and most Ctrl+<letter> combinations) are no longer swallowed or misrouted while a terminal has focus.
  • Refactored SFTP account management and the SFTP tree view toolbar (now AUI-based, using standard icons) for a more consistent look and feel; the Quick Connect dialog now uses a notebook-based layout.
  • Refactored the Diff Folders frame's icon handling and toolbar for consistency with the rest of the IDE.
  • Improved the Git Commit dialog: selection handling, search, and general visual consistency.
  • Adjusted alternate row colors and tree indentation on Windows for better readability in dark/light themes.
  • Simplified default shell selection for new terminals (modal selection instead of a toolbar dropdown) and improved WSL distribution discovery.
  • Chat window docking now defaults to disabled.
  • Renamed the "AI" menu to "Chat AI" for clarity, and added a predefined Ollama endpoint to the default AI settings.
  • The tab switcher (Ctrl-Tab) now shows each entry's icon in its own column, with a modified-file indicator prepended to the file name instead of overlaid on the icon.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed a Ctrl+Tab assertion failure.
  • Fixed folder expand/collapse not toggling correctly on double-click in file trees.
  • Fixed terminal-related events (tab title, termination, link clicks) not reaching plugins hosting their own terminal (e.g. Claude Code) due to a cross-plugin event delivery issue.
  • Fixed a potential crash from a null file-watcher handler, and ensured watchers are cleared correctly when files are closed.
  • Fixed disabled bitmaps rendering incorrectly (scaling) on Windows.
  • Fixed the DataView row height on Windows.
  • Fixed a potential null-pointer access in the Git Commit dialog when changing the selected file.
  • Fixed the "Safe Drawing" terminal menu item not reflecting its actual state.
  • Fixed terminal notebook event binding and ensured the GLEW DLL is bundled on Windows, avoiding a missing-dependency failure.
  • Fixed font handling so the configured default font is applied correctly to editors.
  • LSP: now shows a message box when a code action (e.g. renaming a namespace via clangd) cannot be applied, instead of failing silently.
  • LSP: fixed an incorrect Code Action request being sent to the language server.
  • Removed invalid/stale theme files.
  • Fixed a bug where closing one tab in an AUI-docked notebook could notify plugins (e.g. Claude Code) that a different tab had closed.
  • Fixed Chat AI not fully resetting its context: "Clear Session" could leave stale context active on the running client instead of clearing it.
  • Corrected the placeholder environment-variable name used for the default LLM authorization key in the default AI settings.

Localization

  • Updated Italian translation and PO file formatting.
  • Updated Chinese translation.
  • General translation/PO file refresh across languages.

For the full list of commits, see the commit history between the 18.4.0 and 18.5.0 tags.