Tabkeeper (VS Code)

Tabkeeper gives each Git branch its own set of pinned editor tabs. Switch branches and your pinned tabs switch with you — the tabs pinned on the branch you leave are saved, and the ones saved for the branch you arrive on are opened and pinned.

Tabkeeper only changes which tabs are pinned. It never closes unpinned tabs, edits file contents, or touches Git itself.

Requirements

• VS Code 1.90 or later
• A workspace folder inside a Git repository

Install

1. Download the .vsix from the latest release.
2. In VS Code or VSCodium, open the Extensions view, choose the ... menu, and select Install from VSIX.... Or from a terminal:

   code --install-extension Tabkeeper.VSCode.vsix
   

   (use codium instead of code for VSCodium).

To update, install a newer .vsix over the old one. To remove it, use the Extensions view.

Every release's notes list the .vsix's SHA-256 checksum. To check the download:

sha256sum Tabkeeper.VSCode.vsix

Using it

1. Pin the tabs you want for the branch you're on (right-click a tab → Pin, or drag it to the pinned area).
2. Switch branches, in VS Code's Source Control view, the built-in Git extension, or any Git client.
3. Tabkeeper saves the old branch's pinned tabs and restores the new branch's.

The first time you visit a branch, whatever you already have pinned becomes that branch's set, so nothing is lost. A branch you've never set up starts with no pinned tabs. If a branch checkout is still writing files when tabs are restored, Tabkeeper retries for a few seconds so late-arriving files are still pinned.

A status bar item shows whether Tabkeeper is on; click it to toggle. All commands are available from the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P) under Tabkeeper: ...:

Settings

Under Settings → Extensions → Tabkeeper (tabkeeper.*):

Changes take effect on the next branch check; Tabkeeper: Sync Now applies them at once.

Branch rules

By default each branch keeps its own tab set. Rules let branches share a set, or opt out entirely. Set tabkeeper.rules to an array of objects (editable directly in settings.json, or via the Settings UI's array editor):

[
  { "pattern": "feature/*", "pinSetName": "features", "enabled": true },
  { "pattern": "release/*", "pinSetName": "release", "enabled": false }
]

• pattern — a case-insensitive branch glob (* matches any run of characters, ? matches one).
• pinSetName — the shared set that matching branches use instead of their own.
• enabled — true shares the set; false leaves matching branches untouched.

The most specific pattern wins, so feature/login uses its own rule ahead of feature/*.

Your data

Everything Tabkeeper stores is local to your machine and never committed, under the extension's global storage directory:

pinned-tabs.json  saved tab sets, per repository and branch
activity.log      what Tabkeeper did, timestamped

Use Tabkeeper: Open Saved Tab State / Open Activity Log to find and open them directly. Paths in pinned-tabs.json are repository-relative, so moving the repository on disk doesn't break saved sets.

Multi-root workspaces

If a workspace has multiple folders, Tabkeeper runs one synchronizer per distinct Git repository root (folders that resolve to the same repository share one synchronizer). Commands that act on "the current branch" use the repository of the active editor's folder, falling back to the first detected repository.

How pinning works in VS Code

VS Code's tab API only lets Tabkeeper toggle the pin state of the active tab in a group, so restoring a branch's tabs briefly activates each one in turn to pin it, then restores your previous active document afterward (unless preserveActiveDocument is off).

Troubleshooting

Tabkeeper: Open Activity Log shows what happened: branch switches, restores, skipped files, and warnings.

• Missing: src/App/Old.ts — a saved tab's file doesn't exist on the branch, so it was skipped.
• No Git repository found for the active workspace — no workspace folder is inside a Git working tree.

If a setting doesn't seem to apply, run Tabkeeper: Sync Now.

Build from source

Prerequisites: Node.js 20 or later and npm.

A Makefile wraps the build - run make help from this directory to list targets:

make ci
make package

make ci installs dependencies reproducibly from the lockfile (use make install instead if you're adding or updating a dependency); make package compiles and produces a .vsix. Other targets include make build, make watch, make current-version, make run (launch an Extension Development Host from the CLI), and make clean.

Or run the equivalent commands directly:

npm install
npm run compile
npx --yes @vscode/vsce package

Press F5 (with this folder open in VS Code) to launch an Extension Development Host for manual testing instead of packaging.

Contributing

Build, test, and release details are in CONTRIBUTING.md.

Tabkeeper is available under the MIT License.