Agent Sessions

All your AI coding sessions in one VS Code side bar: 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 Agent Sessions view: 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.
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.

Getting started

Install the extension and reload the window. The Agent Sessions icon appears in the activity bar.
"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.
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.
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.
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.

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.ssh.path`	`ssh`	The ssh binary used for remote machines.

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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