[BUG] Projects missing from sidebar after recent update. Individual sessions in projects are now single sessions under Default

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing issues and this hasn't been reported yet
• [x] This is a single bug report (please file separate reports for different bugs)
• [x] I am using the latest version of Claude Code

What's Wrong?

[Desktop] 2.37337.1 (Windows 11): "project" sidebar grouping now keys on seeded environment presets; folders without a preset lose their group, and adding a preset does not reliably restore it

App: Claude desktop 2.37337.1, Windows 11 Pro, binary dated 2026-10-13. Updated from 1.x.

After the update, sidebar "Group by: project" only shows groups for 8 of my ~20 project folders. The update wrote %APPDATA%\Claude\ccd-session-presets.json with 8 presets, all sharing one createdAt and "seededFromDraft": true. I never created presets. Every other folder with sessions (one has 108 sessions, another 22, others 15, 12, 12, and eight more smaller ones) lost its group. Their sessions sit under a "Default" group with the folder slug as subtitle. Nothing is archived or deleted; group by date lists everything.

Adding environments by hand (Choose environment > New environment) restored groups for two folders. The same steps for a third folder did not: the preset is saved with the exact cwd of all 108 of its session records, it appears in the environment list, but no sidebar group appears and the sessions stay under Default. Tried the slug form of the name too. Toggling group-by off and on does not help. Session records for the folders that worked and the one that did not are identical in cwd and originCwd, and none carry envScopeId.

Also: clicking "+" on any seeded group shows "Couldn't switch environments: the Local environment isn't available anymore." The session still starts on the matching preset. Top-level "+ New" does not show it.

What Should Happen?

"Group by: project" groups sessions by folder, as it did before the update. If grouping now depends on environment presets, the migration should seed one preset for every folder that has sessions, and adding a preset by hand should always produce the group, as it did for Moot and StickyBoard but not for Last Beacon Survival.

Error Messages/Logs

Toast text (new-session composer, when clicking "+" on a pre-update sidebar group):
  Couldn't switch environments: the Local environment isn't available anymore.

App logs: %APPDATA%\Claude\logs\main.log and claude.ai-web.log contain zero lines dated 2026-10-14. The toast and the grouping behavior are not logged. The last version recorded in main.log before the update was appVersion 1.28929.0.

%APPDATA%\Claude\ccd-session-presets.json after the update (one seeded entry shown, 8 total, all with the same createdAt):
{
  "byAccount": {
    "<account-id>": {
      "presets": [
        {
          "id": "<uuid>",
          "name": "<folder name>",
          "createdAt": 1791996970341,
          "lastUsedAt": 1791996970341,
          "target": { "kind": "local", "cwd": "C:\\Users\\[USER]\\Documents\\<folder>" }
        }
      ],
      "builtIns": { "local": { "settings": { "modelId": "claude-fable-5-1", "effort": "high", "worktree": false } } },
      "seededFromDraft": true
    }
  }
}

Preset added by hand that does NOT produce a sidebar group (path matches all 108 session records' cwd exactly):
{
  "id": "b65064a3-f2e8-4ec7-a8f1-f40fb3499aaf",
  "name": "Last Beacon Survival",
  "target": { "kind": "local", "cwd": "C:\\Users\\[USER]\\Documents\\Games\\Last Beacon Survival" },
  "settings": { "worktree": false },
  "createdAt": 1792005792557,
  "lastUsedAt": 1792005955565
}

Preset added by hand the same way that DOES produce a sidebar group (15 sessions, structurally identical):
{
  "id": "5a5fc031-e5b5-4b79-afe1-2d76c59eaf67",
  "name": "Moot",
  "target": { "kind": "local", "cwd": "C:\\Users\\[USER]\\Documents\\Projects\\Moot" },
  "settings": { "worktree": false },
  "createdAt": 1792004947741,
  "lastUsedAt": 1792004947742
}

Preset created via "Save as environment" that also DOES produce a sidebar group (8 sessions):
{
  "id": "1e084132-6338-4267-b57b-f19b1e575433",
  "name": "StickyBoard",
  "target": { "kind": "local", "cwd": "C:\\Users\\[USER]\\Documents\\Projects\\StickyBoard" },
  "settings": {},
  "createdAt": 1792000317694,
  "lastUsedAt": 1792000317694
}

Session record fields (claude-code-sessions\...\local_*.json), all three folders: envScopeId absent, isArchived false, cwd == originCwd == preset cwd.

Steps to Reproduce

1. On Claude desktop 1.x (Windows), have sessions in roughly 20 different project folders, all shown in the Code tab sidebar under "Group by: project", one group per folder.
2. Let the app auto-update to 2.37337.1 (binary dated 2026-10-13).
3. Open the Code tab. Sidebar is still on "Group by: project".
4. Observe: only 8 folder groups remain. Every other folder's sessions are under a single "Default" group, each with the folder slug as subtitle (e.g. "last-beacon-survival", "moot"). Group by date lists every session, so nothing is archived or deleted.
5. Open %APPDATA%\Claude\ccd-session-presets.json. It contains exactly those 8 presets, all with createdAt 1791996970340 or 1791996970341 (one write), and "seededFromDraft": true. No presets were ever created by the user.
6. Click the "+" on any of those 8 sidebar groups. Toast: "Couldn't switch environments: the Local environment isn't available anymore." The new-session composer falls back to that group's preset and the session starts normally. Clicking the top-level "+ New" button instead shows no toast and lands on "This computer".
7. Workaround attempt A, SUCCEEDED: on the new-session page, Choose environment > + New environment, name "Moot", path C:\Users\[USER]\Documents\Projects\Moot. A "Moot" sidebar group appeared and all 15 Moot sessions moved out of Default into it. Same result earlier for "StickyBoard" (C:\Users\[USER]\Documents\Projects\StickyBoard, 8 sessions), that one created via the "Save as environment" link in a new session's header.
8. Workaround attempt B, FAILED: identical steps, name "Last Beacon Survival", path C:\Users\[USER]\Documents\Games\Last Beacon Survival (108 sessions). The preset saves and appears in the environment list, but no "Last Beacon Survival" sidebar group appears and all 108 sessions stay under Default with subtitle "last-beacon-survival". Opening one of those sessions shows no environment in its header.
9. Added a second preset named "last-beacon-survival" (slug form) with the same path: no change.
10. Switched Group by to date and back to project: no change.
11. Compared the session records in %APPDATA%\Claude\claude-code-sessions\<account>\<org>\local_*.json for Moot and StickyBoard against Last Beacon Survival: cwd and originCwd match the preset path exactly in all three, isArchived is false on all, and envScopeId is absent on every record in all three. Nothing in the records distinguishes the folder that failed from the two that worked.

Claude Model

Not sure / Multiple models

Is this a regression?

Yes, this worked in a previous version

Last Working Version

_No response_

Claude Code Version

Claude desktop app: 2.37337.1 (Windows), binary dated 2026-10-13 Claude Code CLI: 2.1.220 OS: Windows 11 Pro 10.0.26300 Platform: Claude desktop app, Code tab (not terminal, not IDE)

Platform

Anthropic API

Operating System

Windows

Terminal/Shell

Other

Additional Information

_No response_