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[FEATURE]: Project Tabs with Sessions Grouped by Project #51759
Description
Feature hasn't been suggested before.
- I have verified this feature I'm about to request hasn't been suggested before.
Describe the enhancement you want to request
Problem: every top tab is an individual session, and sessions from different projects
are mixed into one flat strip. Tab titles rarely say which project they belong to, and
they get truncated past a handful of tabs. Projects and conversations are two levels of
navigation, but the current layout flattens them into one, so switching between work in
different projects is guesswork.
Proposed change:
Add project-based grouping for sessions while preserving the existing horizontal and vertical layouts.
Top-level tabs represent projects, with one tab per project labeled by its name. The session list for the currently selected project is displayed in the left panel, allowing users to browse and switch between sessions without mixing conversations from different projects.
Selecting a session opens it in the main view. This keeps projects and sessions as two clear levels of navigation, while remaining compatible with both horizontal and vertical layouts.
Why in OpenCode: this is the built-in desktop layout, so no plugin can fix it.
Prior discussion:
- [FEATURE]: Vertical tabs #36942 — a comment proposes exactly this ("one top-level tab per project" + a sidebar
listing that project's sessions), but the issue itself is about vertical tabs. - [FEATURE]: Automatically group desktop session tabs by project #44589 — group session tabs by project; tabs would still be sessions.
- feat(app): Codex-style sidebar navigation with live thread status, settle and pins #48526 — opt-in sidebar of projects with their threads; the tab strip still means
sessions. This changes what a tab means, so it is a different direction.
basic system context
- operating system: windows 11
- OpenCode version: desktop 2.0.18
Happy to ship this behind a layout option if maintainers prefer not to change the default.
Activity
github-actions commentedon Sep 28, 2026
This issue doesn't fully meet our contributing guidelines.
What needs to be fixed:
[FEATURE]:; the current title contains only the template prefix.Please edit this issue to address the above within 2 hours, or it will be automatically closed.
This issue might be a duplicate of existing issues. Please check:
If you believe this was flagged incorrectly, please let a maintainer know.
[-][FEATURE]:[/-][+][FEATURE]: every top tab is an individual session[/+]github-actions commentedon Sep 28, 2026
The title and Feature Request fields are now in place. Please add basic system context, including your OpenCode version and operating system, so maintainers can evaluate this desktop-layout request.
github-actions commentedon Sep 28, 2026
Thanks for updating the issue!
[-][FEATURE]: every top tab is an individual session[/-][+][FEATURE]: Project-level tabs with a per-project session list in the left panel[/+]hope-999 commentedon Sep 28, 2026
Thanks for the duplicate check. I read all five, but they keep one session per tab
and only add a sidebar next to that tab strip (#37273, #38410, #48956, #48966 all ask
for a sidebar alongside session tabs; #44589 groups session tabs by project, so tabs
still mean sessions).
This issue changes what a tab means: one tab per project, sessions move out of the tab
strip into the left panel. So projects and sessions become two levels of navigation
instead of one flat session tab strip. Same difference against #48526, which adds an
opt-in sidebar but leaves tabs as sessions.
The closest prior mention is a comment on #36942 ("one top-level tab per project" +
a sidebar listing that project's sessions), but that issue is about vertical tabs, so
this structure isn't tracked on its own.
Happy to adjust if maintainers prefer to fold this into one of those issues.
hope-999 commentedon Sep 29, 2026
I’d like it to look like this:
horizontal layout:
vertical layout:
[-][FEATURE]: Project-level tabs with a per-project session list in the left panel[/-][+][FEATURE]: Project Tabs with Sessions Grouped by Project[/+]opencodejr commentedon Oct 28, 2026
Thanks for the detailed proposal! To restate it: in the desktop app, each top-level tab would be a project instead of a session, and the left panel would list the sessions of the selected project. Projects and conversations would then be two separate levels of navigation, in both the horizontal and vertical layouts, possibly behind a layout option.
This would change the built-in desktop layout, so a plugin can't provide it. Maintainers will consider it.
Related issues, roughly in order of how close they are: