Yes, the debug terminal is definitively similar to "auto attach".
So IMO we have two options now:

we remove the auto-attach feature from VS Code and explain users in the release notes how to use the debug terminal,
we use the auto-attach feature as an entry point to the new debug terminal, e.g. when a user knows this setting or even has the setting already turned on, we use it to enable/open the debug terminal for him. Or we use the "auto attach" setting to guide the user to the debug terminal functionality (and then hide the auto attach indicator in the status bar).

I'd prefer the second option because with this we could easily redirect existing users to the new feature.

One technical aspect of the "auto attach" setting to keep in mind:
A user can enable "auto attach" to be on by default. This means that after a restart VS Code actively polls for node.js programs started in the integrated terminal.
Since we do not want to start the node-debug extensions on startup, we have moved the "auto attach" functionality into a lightweight extension that can be launched on startup without slowing the startup time in a significant way (< 10ms). Only if the auto-attach polling detects a node.js in debug mode, it will activate node-debug.
If we want to provide similar "always-on" experience with the debug terminal and js-debug, we should consider a similar approach (and have some js-debug related functionality in the auto-attach extension).

/cc @connor4312 @roblourens @isidorn

Adapt "auto attach" feature to js-debug #88599

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