Agent Sessions

All your AI coding sessions in the VS Code Explorer, under your files: Claude Code and Codex, on this machine and on remote machines over ssh, with live statuses, unread marks, and one-click resume in the agent's own plugin.

VS Code's built-in "Chat Sessions" view only knows the agents that plug into it, does not tell Claude sessions from Codex ones, and opens Claude sessions in Copilot rather than in the Claude Code extension. Agent Sessions reads the agents' own session stores instead and stays out of their way.

The Explorer with the project files and, under them, the Agent Sessions section: sessions of two agents grouped by machine and project, with running and unread marks

Features

One tree for every agent. Sessions are grouped by machine and project. Each row shows the agent icon, the title the agent gave the session, and how long ago it was last active.
Live status. A running session gets a green dot. Claude Code status comes from its process registry; Codex status comes from the last turn event in the rollout, so an abandoned turn is not shown as running forever.
Unread marks. A session that finished work since you last opened it is marked with ●. Opening a session in Claude Code or Codex does not count as activity, so merely looking at old sessions keeps them read. A session whose tab is active in the focused window is read as it goes.
Badge, notifications and a tray icon. The number of sessions that finished work and wait for you is shown on the Explorer icon in the activity bar, and each such session is announced once: on Linux with a system notification from a small tray helper, elsewhere with a VS Code message with an "Open" button; several sessions that finish at once are summed up in one notification. The tray icon lists those sessions in its menu and gets a dot while any wait. The tray helper is used only in local windows; a Remote-SSH window shows VS Code messages.
Opens in the native plugin. Double-click a Claude session and it opens in the Claude Code extension; a Codex session opens in the Codex plugin, in its side bar or in an editor tab. "Resume in Terminal" prepares the CLI command instead.
Remote machines. Add any host from ~/.ssh/config. The extension installs a small daemon on the remote machine, brings its own Node when the host has none, and streams that machine's sessions into the same tree.
Housekeeping. Pin the sessions you keep coming back to, rename them, hide the ones you no longer care about, mark them read or unread, delete them for good, and apply most of that to a multi-selection.
One daemon per machine. All VS Code windows share one background process, so opening a second window does not rescan anything.

Requirements

VS Code 1.96 or newer on Linux or macOS. Windows is not supported.
The Claude Code and Codex extensions for opening sessions in place. Listing sessions works without them.
For remote machines: ssh access that works without prompts (BatchMode=yes), and either Node 20+ on the host or the ability to download Node 22 from nodejs.org.
For the tray icon: Linux with a StatusNotifier host in the panel (GNOME with the AppIndicator extension, KDE, Cinnamon, XFCE, MATE). The helper opens sessions through the code CLI of the running VS Code (falling back to xdg-open with the vscode URL scheme).

Getting started

Install the extension and reload the window. An Agent Sessions section appears in the Explorer under your files. If it is not there, right-click the Explorer header: sections are switched on and off in that menu. The section can be dragged into the activity bar or the bottom panel like any other view; VS Code remembers where you put it.
"This machine" connects on its own and lists the sessions found in ~/.claude and ~/.codex.
To watch a remote machine, click Add Machine in the view header, pick a host from your ssh config, and let Prepare Machine finish. The machine then connects and shows its sessions.

Working with sessions

Action	How
Open a session	Double-click it (or single-click with `agentSessions.openOn` set to `singleClick`). "Open Session" in the context menu always opens immediately.
Open a Claude session of another folder	Claude Code finds only sessions of the folder open in its window and its git worktrees, so such a session offers "Open Folder in New Window", which then opens the session there, or "Resume in Terminal".
Resume in a terminal	"Resume in Terminal" opens a terminal in the session folder with `claude --resume <id>` or `codex resume <id>` typed in, not run.
Start a new session	The plus button that appears on a folder under the pointer, or "New Session…" in its context menu, asks for the agent, Claude Code or Codex, and starts a session in that folder: in this window when the folder is open in it, otherwise in a new window on the folder, a Remote-SSH one for a remote machine.
Mark read / unread	Context menu. Opening a session marks it read, and so does having its editor tab active in the focused window: switching to the tab or back to the window clears the mark. A session shown in the Claude Code or Codex sidebar is not detected.
Hide / unhide	The crossed-out eye button that appears on a session under the pointer, to the left of the pin, or "Hide Session" in the context menu, removes the session from the tree; the eye button in the header shows hidden sessions dimmed with the word `hidden`. On a hidden session the button turns into an eye that brings the session back.
Pin / unpin	The pin button that appears on a session under the pointer, or "Pin Session" in the context menu, moves the session to the top of its folder and adds a pin to its icon. The same button on a pinned session unpins it.
Rename	The pencil button that appears on a Claude Code or Codex session under the pointer, to the left of the eye, "Rename Session…" in the context menu, or F2 in the focused list asks for a new name and has the agent itself write it, see below.
Move to another folder	Drag a Claude Code or Codex session, or several selected ones, onto a folder of the same machine, or onto a session in it; the drop asks once and moves them, see below. Opening a session of another folder also offers to move it to the folder of the window.
See what a session is about	Hover a session: the tooltip shows its full title, the start of the first prompt and the time of the last update.
Order	Sessions in a folder go by creation time, newest first, with pinned ones above the rest. Activity does not move a session.
Delete	"Delete Session…" or the Delete key (Cmd+Backspace on macOS) in the focused list asks once and deletes permanently, see below.
Several at once	Shift-click and Ctrl-click select several sessions; pin, hide, delete and mark-as-read then apply to the whole selection.
See what waits for you	The badge on the Explorer icon counts unread sessions that are not hidden, on every machine, whatever the view filter. On Linux the same list is in the menu of the tray icon; a click opens a Claude Code session in the window that has its folder open, bringing that window to the front, or in a new window on the folder when none has it; a Codex session opens in the last active window.
Copy the id	"Copy Session ID".

Filter

The Filter Sessions button opens one list with three sections:

Agents: which agents to show.
Projects: "Only the workspace open in this window" keeps, on this machine, the sessions whose folder is open in the window. Remote machines are not affected. It is on in a newly opened workspace.
Remote machines: "Show remote machines" toggles the remote machines, same as the header button.

The button icon is filled while the filter restricts anything. The filter is remembered per window.

Renaming sessions

A new name is written by the agent's own tooling on the machine that holds the session, so Claude Code and Codex show it too, in claude --resume, codex resume and their VS Code extensions, and it works for remote machines:

Claude Code: renameSession from the Agent SDK appends a title to the session file, as /rename does.
Codex: a thread/name/set request to a codex app-server started for it lets Codex update its own session index.

A session that is running or open in its agent can be renamed as well. A Codex window that has the session open may show the old name until it is reloaded.

Moving sessions to another folder

Claude Code opens only the sessions of the folder open in its window. A Claude Code session can be moved to another folder of its machine instead of opening a window on its own folder; it also works for remote machines. The move is done the way Claude Code does it when the working directory of a session changes: the session file and its directory of subagent transcripts and tool results go to the project folder of the new directory under ~/.claude/projects, and a relocated entry appended to the file names that directory. Claude Code then lists and continues the session in the new folder; the paths in its history stay as they were.

A session that is open in Claude Code is not moved: close it there first. Neither is a session to a folder that does not exist or whose path is longer than 200 characters. The window the move was made from does not open the session.

A Codex session opens in any window, so moving it only changes the folder it is listed under and works in. Codex does it itself: a thread/resume request with the new working directory to a codex app-server started for it makes Codex record the directory in the session file and in its state, with the other settings of the session kept. The session file stays where it is. A Codex session that is running or open in Codex is not moved, and a Codex window may show the old folder until it is reloaded.

Deleting sessions

Deletion is permanent and is carried out by the agent's own tooling on the machine that holds the session, so it also works for remote machines:

Claude Code: deleteSession from the Agent SDK removes the session file and its subagent transcripts.
Codex: codex delete --force <id> lets Codex update its own indexes.

A running session cannot be deleted. A session that is currently loaded in the Codex plugin cannot be deleted either, because Codex holds a lock on it until the window is reloaded; the error message says so.

Remote machines

Add Machine lists the Host entries of ~/.ssh/config. The extension stores only the host name in its own machines.json; address, user and key stay in your ssh config.

Prepare Machine runs over ssh: it checks the platform (Linux or macOS, x64 or arm64), looks for Node 20+, downloads Node 22.15.0 into ~/.local/share/agent-sessions/ when there is none, copies the daemon there and verifies it. Run it again after updating the extension.

The ssh connection uses BatchMode=yes, RemoteCommand=none and RequestTTY=no, so hosts that force an interactive shell in ssh config still work, and no password prompt can appear.

Opening a remote session in place is not possible yet; remote sessions are shown with their status and can be hidden, marked and deleted.

The local daemon

One daemon.mjs --listen process per machine serves every VS Code window over a unix socket. The first window starts it, later windows attach, and it exits by itself after 60 seconds without clients.

Socket, pid and log: $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/agent-sessions/ on Linux, ~/.local/share/agent-sessions/ where XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is not set (macOS).
The directory is private (0700); a directory left with wider permissions is narrowed, one owned by someone else is refused.
The daemon inherits the environment of the window that started it (CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR, CODEX_HOME, PATH).
After an extension update the windows notice the version mismatch and restart the daemon. Restart Local Daemon does the same by hand and kills a daemon that does not exit.

If "This machine" stays disconnected, run Restart Local Daemon and look at Show Log; the daemon's own log is daemon.log next to the socket.

Settings

Setting	Default	Meaning
`agentSessions.openOn`	`doubleClick`	Open a session on double click; `singleClick` opens on the first click.
`agentSessions.codex.openTarget`	`sidebar`	Open Codex sessions in the Codex side bar or in an editor `panel`.
`agentSessions.showHidden`	`false`	Show hidden sessions in the tree.
`agentSessions.autoConnectOnStartup`	`true`	Connect the local machine and machines marked `autoConnect` on startup.
`agentSessions.notifications`	`true`	Announce a session that finished work and waits: a system notification on Linux with the tray helper, a VS Code message otherwise. More than three at once are summed up in one notification.
`agentSessions.ssh.path`	`ssh`	The ssh binary used for remote machines.
`agentSessions.tray`	`true`	Show the icon in the system tray. Linux only, local windows only (not Remote-SSH).

Machines are kept in machines.json under the extension's global storage; the file can be edited by hand (for example to set "autoConnect": true).

Credits

The Codex rollout discovery and parsing was ported from Codex History Viewer (MIT). See THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

License

MIT

AI Agent Sessions

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