[FEATURE] Make "project" a first-class concept: per-project session history, visible by default

Environment: Windows 11 / Claude desktop app (Code tab) / 2026-08-28
Usage: seven projects running in parallel on one machine; 27 sessions on record.

The core point

Claude Code has no product-level concept of a project. It has cwd, which is a launch location,
not a container for a name, a lifespan, a state, or a handoff to the next session.

Meanwhile, users running several projects in parallel already exist, and they fill the gap
themselves. This report's environment is one such case:

• a hand-written routing table in CLAUDE.md that maps the tail of the cwd to a project
• a self-managed convention of "cd to this folder to start this project"
• session-to-session handoff summaries stored outside the product, in cloud storage

All of this substitutes for something the product should own. It works only because the user
is resourceful. Notably, the user did not arrive at this workflow on their own — the assistant
proposed it. There is no official path to it.

Anthropic may not yet have registered that people are running multiple long-lived projects
through Claude Code.

Measured today

• Sessions on record: 27
• Archived: 23
• Shown in the sidebar by default: 4

85% of the history is hidden by default.

The sidebar does group by cwd, so the classification already exists. What is missing is any
place to open it.

On the Status filter

Setting Status from Active to All in the filter next to a project header does reveal archived
sessions. It is not sufficient:

1. It is undiscoverable. The axis is hidden behind one icon; both the user and the assistant

initially concluded that archived sessions could not be reached at all.

1. The default is Active. The default should be "visible"; narrowing is the advanced action.

Hiding 85% of history from someone who came to look at history inverts that.

1. Even set to All, it is one long flat list — not "the full history of this project".
2. Filter axes are coupled: the time-range filter disappears under some Group by modes (#78775).

Even a full list is unusable

Auto-generated titles don't distinguish sessions: 5 of 9 in one project, and 3 of 4 in another,
were all titled "再開" ("resume"). That's what continuing from last time produces. Related: #74717.

Search is not a substitute

Full-text search assumes you remember what to search for. People open history precisely because
they don't. Search serves recall; browsing serves recognition, and only browsing is available
to someone who has forgotten.

Proposals, highest impact first

1. Make project a first-class concept. Keep binding it to a folder, but let it carry a display

name, its full session history, and a handoff note. This removes the need for users to
hand-write routing tables in CLAUDE.md.

1. Give each project a home view: clicking the sidebar project header opens all of that

project's sessions chronologically, archived included by default.

1. Default to visible. Either default Status to All, or at minimum show "23 more" so that

hiding is itself visible.

1. Re-title sessions from their content when the auto-title is contentless.
2. Allow a per-project display name distinct from the folder name.
3. Add a cross-project view: what moved recently across all projects. People running several in

parallel have no way to see which ones have stalled.

1. Expose unarchive to the assistant side. MCP has archive_session with no counterpart, so the

assistant can archive but cannot restore — it cannot perform the action it just recommended.

Note on the design

Keying on cwd is the right call; a separate registry alongside real folders would create two
sources of truth. The gap is not the identifier. It is that there is no user-facing entrance to
what that identifier already groups — and that the reality of users driving long-lived, parallel
projects does not appear to be represented in the product.

Related issues

#78775 / #74717 / #84172 / #81064 / #86376