Workspace & Session Restore

What GDAgent Restores

When you reopen a project, GDAgent brings back:

  • sessions
  • tabs, tab names and icons
  • active layout, grouped tabs and split layout state
  • terminal scrollback — each tab’s previous output replays above a “restored from previous session” divider
  • the AI conversation itself — supported agents relaunch with their native resume flags and continue the same conversation where it left off

Restored tabs show a Resumed badge; hover it to see details. If a conversation could not be resumed (for example, it expired or its transcript was deleted), the tab starts a Fresh conversation and the badge’s tooltip explains why. Every launch ends in a working terminal either way.

How Conversation Resume Works

GDAgent tracks a per-tab conversation handle and relaunches each agent through its own native session mechanism — assigned session ids, session stores, or history files, depending on the tool. Agents that print or record their session ids are picked up automatically, so resume also works for sessions GDAgent did not name itself.

For agents whose resume support varies by version (GitHub Copilot CLI, Aider, Mistral Vibe, Command Code), GDAgent probes the installed version first and only injects resume flags the tool actually understands. Custom agents you register yourself never resume: GDAgent only knows the command you entered, so it has no session mechanism to reattach to. See the Support Matrix for the current per-agent status.

If you switch conversations from inside an agent (for example /clear in Claude Code or /new in Codex), GDAgent notices and reopens the conversation you last saw. When it cannot tell which one you mean — for example with several tabs of the same agent — it resumes the conversation the tab launched with rather than guess. If a resume attempt fails right away, the tab starts fresh but keeps the previous conversation aside so a later launch can resume it.

Choosing the Behavior

In Settings → General:

  • Resume Conversations — Always (default) resumes silently, Ask shows a per-tab “Resume Conversation / Start Fresh” choice before launching, and Never starts every launch as a fresh conversation.
  • Persist Terminal Scrollback — toggles saving terminal output between editor sessions, with a configurable per-tab size limit.

Where the Data Lives

Persisted scrollback is stored encrypted in the project’s editor data folder and is removed when you close the tab or delete the session. The conversation content itself stays where the agent already keeps it — in that tool’s own local session storage.