Project identity should anchor on directory path, not git detection — fixes global-bucket fallback and session isolation #47885

Summary

ProjectV2.resolve() in packages/core/src/project.ts makes project identity fully dependent on git detection succeeding. When git.repo.discover() returns null — non-git directory, git not yet initialized, transient discovery failure, workspace root above multiple repos — the fallback collapses both the project ID and the directory into shared, non-unique values:

const repo = yield* git.repo.discover(input)
if (!repo) return { id: ID.global, directory: AbsolutePath.make(path.parse(input).root), vcs: undefined }

Two separate directories that both fail git detection get:

• same id: ID.global
• same directory: "/" (root of the filesystem, via path.parse(input).root)

This means any two unrelated directories that fail git discovery become indistinguishable as the same project, merging their sessions, permissions, and history in the UI.

Why this happens more than it seems

Failing git discovery isn't rare/edge-case:

• Workspace layouts where the launch directory is a plain folder containing multiple git repos as subdirectories (common multi-repo workspace setup).
• Directory not yet git init'd when opencode starts.
• Any transient failure in git.repo.discover().

In all these cases the directory path itself is still perfectly known and unique — we just choose to throw it away and substitute /.

Downstream impact (confirmed via source + related issues)

1. Session bucket collision — /sessions picker filters by projectID. All directories that fall back to global share one bucket, so sessions from completely unrelated projects show up mixed together. (New session created via /new gets projectID=global instead of the directory's project, making prior sessions invisible in /sessions #42230, Same git directory gets two project IDs and /sessions only shows the latest project's sessions #36464, bug(core): empty git repos share the same "global" project ID, causing sessions to leak across unrelated directories #39773, session list and TUI mix sessions from unrelated non-git directories #38529)
2. Permission path breakage — tool permission rules evaluate paths relative to worktree. With worktree === "/", path.relative("/", "/home/.../file.md") produces a long root-relative fragment instead of a project-relative path, so scoped permission rules silently stop matching. (Non-git projects use "/" as worktree, breaking permission path resolution #24694)
3. Security concern raised by community — root-relative worktree implicitly gives filesystem-root-scoped permission context to a directory that never asked for it. See community pushback in Non-git projects use "/" as worktree, breaking permission path resolution #24694.

This was already root-caused and fixed once: #24694 had a working PR (#33668, fix(project): use directory root for non-git projects) that normalized the opened directory as worktree/sandbox instead of /. Both the issue and the PR were closed automatically by the 60-day stale-bot, not by a maintainer decision, and multiple users have asked for reopening since.

Proposed fix direction

Stop treating git discovery as a prerequisite for project identity. Instead:

• Primary identity key = normalized absolute directory path. Every directory gets a stable, unique project identity by default, git or not.
• Git remains an enrichment/merge signal, not a gate. If git is present, use remote URL / root commit to additionally unify multiple worktrees or clones of the same repo under one project — exactly like today's remote(repo) ?? previous ?? root(repo) logic — but only to merge, never to collapse unrelated directories into global.
• ID.global should be reserved for the literal filesystem root or an explicit "no project" case, not used as a catch-all for "git detection failed here."
• Directory used for worktree/sandbox/permission scoping should always be the resolved input directory, never path.parse(input).root.

This restores directory-level isolation (which several users report as previous/expected behavior) without requiring a new config flag — every directory is inherently its own project by default, and git just adds cross-directory linking on top when applicable.

Related issues

• Non-git projects use "/" as worktree, breaking permission path resolution #24694 — original report + fix PR fix(project): use directory root for non-git projects #33668, closed by stale-bot, community asked to reopen
• New session created via /new gets projectID=global instead of the directory's project, making prior sessions invisible in /sessions #42230 — downstream symptom: /new creates session with projectID=global, hiding prior sessions
• Same git directory gets two project IDs and /sessions only shows the latest project's sessions #36464, bug(core): empty git repos share the same "global" project ID, causing sessions to leak across unrelated directories #39773, session list and TUI mix sessions from unrelated non-git directories #38529 — same symptom family, likely duplicates of the same root cause
• Support branch or local-clone based project identity strategy #29644 — different but adjacent: configurable identity strategy (remote/branch/path precedence) for git repos specifically; this issue is about the non-git fallback path, narrower in scope and shouldn't require new config surface

Environment

• opencode version: 1.18.29
• OS: macOS (darwin)
• Reproduced with: workspace root directory containing multiple independent git repos as subdirectories, launched opencode from the workspace root instead of from inside each repo