Keyboard navigation for projects/sessions sidebar (focus vs. activate, plus quick actions)

Resolved 💬 4 comments Opened May 10, 2026 by mozltovcoktail Closed May 13, 2026

Summary

The left sidebar in the Claude Code desktop/web app lists projects and their sessions, but it's only navigable with the mouse. There are no keyboard shortcuts to move between projects or sessions, and ~/.claude/keybindings.json doesn't expose any actions for the sidebar (only tabs:*, footer:*, etc.).

Please add first-class keyboard navigation for the sidebar.

Requested behavior

Two distinct modes of navigation:

  1. Activate — move keyboard focus to a session and switch the main pane to that conversation (the current click behavior).
  2. Focus only — move a selection cursor through the sidebar without switching the active conversation. This lets the user line up a session and run a quick action against it without leaving the conversation they're currently in.

Quick actions on the focused (not necessarily active) session:

  • Rename
  • Archive
  • Fork / duplicate
  • Delete

These should be invokable by keyboard while the sidebar selection is on a given session.

Suggested actions to expose in keybindings.json

So users can rebind to taste:

  • sidebar:focus — move keyboard focus into the sidebar
  • sidebar:next / sidebar:previous — move selection between sessions
  • sidebar:nextProject / sidebar:previousProject — jump between project groups
  • sidebar:activate — open the focused session in the main pane (Enter)
  • sidebar:rename
  • sidebar:archive
  • sidebar:fork
  • sidebar:delete

Why

  • Keyboard-driven workflows: power users running many parallel agent sessions shouldn't have to reach for the mouse to triage them.
  • "Focus without activate" is the key ask — being able to rename/archive/delete an old session without losing context in the current conversation.
  • Parity with how every other sidebar-having editor (VS Code, JetBrains, Finder column view) handles this.

Environment

  • Claude Code desktop/web app (sidebar UI)
  • macOS

View original on GitHub ↗

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