A VS Code extension that manages projects as "lanes" within a workspace and switches the full context at once.
Built for developers running AI coding agents across multiple projects.
The Problem
When running many projects:
Explorer shows all projects flat, hard to navigate
Terminals pile up across projects
Editor tabs from different projects get mixed
No way to tell which project's agent is idle when running agents in parallel
Features
Each project becomes a "lane". Switching lanes swaps Explorer, editor tabs, terminals, and Git together.
The switch is a view change — background terminals keep running because the workspace folder URI stays stable (a .lanes-root/active symlink whose target is updated on switch).
Lane switching
Explorer and Git show only the active lane
Editor tabs are saved and restored per lane
Terminals persist in the background across switches
Activity indicator
Shows working / waiting / no-agent per lane, including lanes that aren't currently active
Detection is a generic heuristic over OSC 633 shell integration (bash / zsh) and real-time PTY output observation; not specific to any agent
Lane management
Add and reload lanes from title-bar icons on the Lanes panel
Rename or remove a lane via right-click on the lane item. Rename preserves the lane's terminal sessions; remove rejects the active lane and never touches the folder on disk
Commands
Command
Description
Project Lanes: Focus
Switch to a lane
Project Lanes: Add Folder to Workspace
Add a folder as a new lane (delegates to workbench.action.addRootFolder)
Project Lanes: Reload Lanes
Re-scan workspaceFolders / symlink target / catalog store and rebuild the registry
Project Lanes: Rename Lane
Rename the selected lane's label (the lane's id changes to match)
Project Lanes: Remove Lane
Remove the selected lane from the catalog (the folder on disk is left untouched)
Project Lanes: Close Terminals
Kill all terminal sessions for the active lane
Settings
Setting
Default
Description
projectLanes.activity.showIndicator
true
Show activity indicator in badge, decoration, and status bar
projectLanes.terminal.shellPath
""
Shell path for Lane Terminal (empty = $SHELL)
Limitations
The symlink-based lane switching assumes a POSIX filesystem (Linux / macOS); Windows is untested
Activity detection requires shell integration via bash or zsh and OSC 633. Other shells (fish, pwsh, etc.) skip injection and fall back to no-agent
Tab restore covers normal file tabs only (not diff views, notebooks, etc.)
Terminal sessions don't survive VS Code window reloads
The extension creates .lanes-root/ next to the .code-workspace file; add it to .gitignore if you don't want it tracked
