[FEATURE] Desktop: Ctrl+Tab should cycle the working set of sessions, not every session in every project

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing requests and this feature hasn't been requested yet
• [x] This is a single feature request (not multiple features)

Problem Statement

Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab cycle through sessions in the sidebar. With one or two projects that's fine. With ~15 projects it isn't usable: the cycle traverses every session in every project, so reaching the one I want means passing dozens I'm not working in, watching each load as it goes by.

The result is that the shortcut doesn't replace the sidebar. I keep the sidebar open and click, which is what the shortcut should have freed me from.

That has a second cost. The desktop window can't be narrowed past the point where the sidebar collapses, so keeping the sidebar open forces the window wide — and a wide window means long lines, which I read badly. I score in roughly the bottom 10–25th percentile for symbol search, and long lines are the specific thing that defeats it: my eye loses the return sweep and I re-read or skip a line. So an unusable cycle order costs me line length, indirectly but reliably.

Proposed Solution

Scope the cycle to the working set rather than to everything. Either of these would do it:

• Sessions with the activity indicator — anything running or carrying the green dot. That is almost exactly the set I switch between.
• Sessions in expanded project groups — so the sidebar's own collapsed/expanded state defines what cycling traverses. Collapsing a project would then mean "not now", for both display and navigation.

The second is the one I'd want, because it makes one piece of state control both, and it's already a control I use.

Alternative Solutions

• Cycle within the current project by default, with a second shortcut to move between projects.
• Jump to a session by index (#61126) — helps, but doesn't fix the ordering.
• A setting for cycle scope: all sessions / active only / current project.

Related

#83699 asks for collapsed sidebar groups to keep showing active sessions. Same underlying point from the display side: the app models "all sessions" and "the current one", with no notion of the working set. This issue is the navigation half — if either landed, the other would matter less.

#61126 (jump to a session by index) and #91228 (sidebar tab shortcuts inert via keyboard on macOS) are adjacent but distinct.

Priority

Medium - Would significantly improve workflow

Feature Category

User interface

Environment

Claude Code desktop, Windows 11.