Describe the feature or problem you'd like to solve
Once Copilot CLI gains the ability to fork or branch sessions (#2058, #1313), users will accumulate a tree of related sessions sharing common ancestry. Today there is no way to:
- see that tree
- jump back to a parent or sibling fork
- navigate among forks without copy-pasting session GUIDs from
~/.copilot/session-state/
I'm filing this as a separate issue because it is downstream of #2058 / #1313 — it has no value until at least one of those lands — but it would be a shame for the navigation gap to surface only after fork/branch ships and people start asking "now what?". This issue is the placeholder so the design can be considered alongside the fork/branch work.
Proposed solution
Three primitives, each useful independently:
1. Ctrl + [ — jump to previous fork (in-order tree traversal)
2. Ctrl + ] — jump to next fork (in-order tree traversal)
In-order traversal means: walking the conversation tree as a depth-first sequence, the bindings move you one step left/right through that sequence. From any node, Ctrl + [ takes you to the most recently visited sibling/ancestor; Ctrl + ] advances to the next.
3. Ctrl + | (or any equivalent chord) — show the conversation tree as a navigable TUI
A full-screen tree view where each node is a session, edges show fork-points, the current node is highlighted, and arrow keys + Enter let you navigate to any session. Bonus: show summary, last activity, and turn count next to each node.
The exact key bindings are a bikeshed detail — what matters is that all three primitives exist (left, right, overview).
Example prompts or workflows
-
Fork-and-return. I'm 30 turns into a refactor; I /fork to debug an unrelated NuGet issue. After fixing it, Ctrl + [ takes me back to the parent without me digging through --resume <guid> history.
-
Compare two approaches. I /branch twice to spike Approach A and Approach B from the same starting point. Ctrl + [ and Ctrl + ] flip me between them so I can A/B compare without losing context.
-
Recover from disorientation. I've been forking liberally for an hour and have lost track of where the "main thread" of work actually lives. Ctrl + | shows me the whole tree, I navigate to the trunk, and pick up where I left off.
Additional context
Describe the feature or problem you'd like to solve
Once Copilot CLI gains the ability to fork or branch sessions (#2058, #1313), users will accumulate a tree of related sessions sharing common ancestry. Today there is no way to:
~/.copilot/session-state/I'm filing this as a separate issue because it is downstream of #2058 / #1313 — it has no value until at least one of those lands — but it would be a shame for the navigation gap to surface only after fork/branch ships and people start asking "now what?". This issue is the placeholder so the design can be considered alongside the fork/branch work.
Proposed solution
Three primitives, each useful independently:
1.
Ctrl + [— jump to previous fork (in-order tree traversal)2.
Ctrl + ]— jump to next fork (in-order tree traversal)In-order traversal means: walking the conversation tree as a depth-first sequence, the bindings move you one step left/right through that sequence. From any node,
Ctrl + [takes you to the most recently visited sibling/ancestor;Ctrl + ]advances to the next.3.
Ctrl + |(or any equivalent chord) — show the conversation tree as a navigable TUIA full-screen tree view where each node is a session, edges show fork-points, the current node is highlighted, and arrow keys + Enter let you navigate to any session. Bonus: show summary, last activity, and turn count next to each node.
The exact key bindings are a bikeshed detail — what matters is that all three primitives exist (left, right, overview).
Example prompts or workflows
Fork-and-return. I'm 30 turns into a refactor; I
/forkto debug an unrelated NuGet issue. After fixing it,Ctrl + [takes me back to the parent without me digging through--resume <guid>history.Compare two approaches. I
/branchtwice to spike Approach A and Approach B from the same starting point.Ctrl + [andCtrl + ]flip me between them so I can A/B compare without losing context.Recover from disorientation. I've been forking liberally for an hour and have lost track of where the "main thread" of work actually lives.
Ctrl + |shows me the whole tree, I navigate to the trunk, and pick up where I left off.Additional context
/fork) and/or Session Branching #1313 (/branch). Without one of those landing, this issue is moot.Ctrl + o/Ctrl + i) is the closest existing keybinding model for "back/forward through positions".git log --graphfor conversation context.ls ~/.copilot/session-state/+ manually inspecting checkpoint files. Functional, but fundamentally not navigation.