How do I automatically clear VS Code terminal when starting a 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.