How do I automatically clear VS Code terminal when starting a build?

I press Ctrl+Shift+B to start a build in Visual Studio Code (it's configured to just run GNU Make), and the build tool output is written to the Terminal window.

However, it's appended to the output from the previous build, which is confusing.

How do I configure VS Code to clear the terminal window before starting a new build?

November 2018 Update

As of this commit (and a few subsequent follow-ups), you can now add a clear presentation option to your task to have it clear the terminal before each task run.

Working example (on fresh clone+build):

{
    // See https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=733558
    // for the documentation about the tasks.json format
    "version": "2.0.0",
    "tasks": [
        {
            "label": "[gcc] Build",
            "type": "shell",
            "command": "g++",
            "args": [
                "source.h",
                "-Wall",
                "-o",
                "a.out"
            ],
            "presentation": {
                "clear": true                        // <-- this line
            }
        }
    ]
}

(Note: the linked commit diff has the key being named clearBeforeExecuting but it's apparently since been changed to just clear).

Prior to this, I created a clear_g++ script on my path with just:

#!/bin/bash
clear
exec g++ $*

And changed my command from g++ to clear_g++.

Since I liked the idea of this approach but it didn't end up working out.

You can change from settings menu (at least from version 1.30.2 and above)...

On Mac, just hit Code > Preferences > Settings.

Then just search for "clear" and check Clear Previous Output.

Clear Previous Output from menu settings

I tried to find a solution but can't. Simple hack I tried is to open new build in new tab. Add this presentation key to your task in tasks.json

 "presentation": {
                "echo": true,
                "reveal": "never",
                "focus": false,
                "panel": "new"
            }

panel:new will open in new terminal.

Add this user setting to clear the OUTPUT tab on clicking run (▶)

"code-runner.clearPreviousOutput": true,

This is not the same as clearing the terminal but it might be what someone wants.

[Edit] This requires the Runner extension, which I'd recommend for testing/running scripts directly within VS Code.

If you control the build task yourself, it's easy to prepend a clear command:

"tasks": [
    {
        "label": "build",
        "type": "shell",
        "command": "clear && make",
....

How do I automatically clear VS Code terminal when starting a build?

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