feat(chats): add managed projectless chat sessions

Create projectless chat sessions under a managed, date-scoped Chats directory and clean abandoned or deleted session folders.

Add Chats to sidebar state, startup cache, shared context, and Electron Mini Chat while keeping VS Code project-only. Resolve managed chat directories to one server-side memory owner and document the runtime contracts.

packages/ui/src/stores/globalSessions.test.ts

@@ -1,7 +1,29 @@
 import { describe, expect, test } from 'bun:test'
-import type { OpencodeClient } from '@opencode-ai/sdk/v2'
+import type { OpencodeClient, Session } from '@opencode-ai/sdk/v2'
 
-import { listGlobalSessionPages, splitGlobalSessionsByArchived } from './globalSessions'
+import { filterManagedChatsForRuntime, listGlobalSessionPages, splitGlobalSessionsByArchived } from './globalSessions'
+
+describe('managed Chats runtime visibility', () => {
+  const session = (id: string, directory: string): Session => ({
+    id,
+    slug: id,
+    projectID: 'project',
+    directory,
+    title: id,
+    version: '1',
+    time: { created: 1, updated: 1 },
+  })
+  const chat = session('chat', '/home/user/.config/openchamber/chats/2026-08-21/session-a')
+  const project = session('project', '/workspace/project')
+
+  test('VS Code rejects managed Chats before they enter global state', () => {
+    expect(filterManagedChatsForRuntime([chat, project], true)).toEqual([project])
+  })
+
+  test('other runtimes retain managed Chats', () => {
+    expect(filterManagedChatsForRuntime([chat, project], false)).toEqual([chat, project])
+  })
+})
 
 describe('listGlobalSessionPages', () => {
   test('sanitizes session list records before returning them', async () => {

packages/ui/src/stores/globalSessions.ts

@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ import { runBackgroundNetworkTask } from '@/lib/background-network';
 import { retry } from "@/sync/retry";
 import { stripSessionListDetails } from "@/sync/sanitize";
 import { startSessionLoadPerformanceEvent } from "@/sync/session-load-performance";
+import { isChatDirectoryPath } from '@/lib/chatDirectories';
 
 export type GlobalSessionRecord = Session & {
     project?: {
@@ -12,6 +13,12 @@ export type GlobalSessionRecord = Session & {
     } | null;
 };
 
+export const filterManagedChatsForRuntime = (sessions: Session[], vscode: boolean): Session[] => (
+    vscode
+        ? sessions.filter((session) => !isChatDirectoryPath(session.directory))
+        : sessions
+);
+
 const toNumber = (value: string | null): number | null => {
     if (!value) {
         return null;

packages/ui/src/stores/useGlobalSessionsStore.ts

@@ -1,12 +1,14 @@
 import { create } from 'zustand';
 import type { OpencodeClient, Session } from '@opencode-ai/sdk/v2';
 import { opencodeClient } from '@/lib/opencode/client';
-import { listGlobalSessionPages, splitGlobalSessionsByArchived } from '@/stores/globalSessions';
+import { filterManagedChatsForRuntime, listGlobalSessionPages, splitGlobalSessionsByArchived } from '@/stores/globalSessions';
 import { getReviewTransferDirection, type ReviewTransferDirection } from '@/lib/reviewFlow';
 import { getOriginalSessionID, getReviewSessionID } from '@/lib/sessionReviewMetadata';
 import { normalizePath } from '@/lib/pathNormalization';
 import { raiseSessionOrderingBaselines } from '@/sync/session-ordering';
 import { mapWithConcurrency } from '@/lib/concurrency';
+import { persistManagedChatSessions, readManagedChatSessions } from '@/sync/persist-cache';
+import { isVSCodeRuntime } from '@/lib/desktop';
 
 type GlobalSessionsStatus = 'idle' | 'loading' | 'ready' | 'error';
 
@@ -363,6 +365,10 @@ const applySnapshot = (
   archivedSessions: Session[],
   status: GlobalSessionsStatus,
 ): Partial<GlobalSessionsState> | GlobalSessionsState => {
+  if (isVSCodeRuntime()) {
+    activeSessions = filterManagedChatsForRuntime(activeSessions, true);
+    archivedSessions = filterManagedChatsForRuntime(archivedSessions, true);
+  }
   const nextActiveSessions = sameSessionList(state.activeSessions, activeSessions)
     ? state.activeSessions
     : activeSessions;
@@ -430,6 +436,10 @@ const mutationRevisionPatch = (state: GlobalSessionsState, ids: Iterable<string>
 };
 
 const applySessionUpserts = (state: GlobalSessionsState, sessions: Session[]): Partial<GlobalSessionsState> => {
+  if (isVSCodeRuntime()) {
+    sessions = filterManagedChatsForRuntime(sessions, true);
+    if (sessions.length === 0) return state;
+  }
   const revisionPatch = mutationRevisionPatch(state, sessions.map((session) => session.id));
   let nextActiveSessions = state.activeSessions;
   let nextArchivedSessions = state.archivedSessions;
@@ -483,11 +493,13 @@ const buildReviewTransferMap = (sessions: Session[]): Map<string, ReviewTransfer
   return next
 }
 
+const initialManagedChatSessions = readManagedChatSessions();
+
 export const useGlobalSessionsStore = create<GlobalSessionsState>((set, get) => ({
-  activeSessions: [],
+  activeSessions: initialManagedChatSessions,
   archivedSessions: [],
-  sessionsByDirectory: new Map(),
-  reviewTransferBySessionId: new Map(),
+  sessionsByDirectory: buildSessionsByDirectory(initialManagedChatSessions),
+  reviewTransferBySessionId: buildReviewTransferMap(initialManagedChatSessions),
   mutationRevision: 0,
   mutationRevisionBySessionId: new Map(),
   hasLoaded: false,
@@ -504,11 +516,12 @@ export const useGlobalSessionsStore = create<GlobalSessionsState>((set, get) =>
   resetForRuntimeSwitch: () => {
     loadGeneration += 1;
     inflightLoad = null;
+    const managedChatSessions = readManagedChatSessions();
     set({
-      activeSessions: [],
+      activeSessions: managedChatSessions,
       archivedSessions: [],
-      sessionsByDirectory: new Map(),
-      reviewTransferBySessionId: new Map(),
+      sessionsByDirectory: buildSessionsByDirectory(managedChatSessions),
+      reviewTransferBySessionId: buildReviewTransferMap(managedChatSessions),
       mutationRevision: 0,
       mutationRevisionBySessionId: new Map(),
       hasLoaded: false,
@@ -722,6 +735,15 @@ export const useGlobalSessionsStore = create<GlobalSessionsState>((set, get) =>
   },
 }));
 
+useGlobalSessionsStore.subscribe((state, previous) => {
+  if (
+    state.activeSessions !== previous.activeSessions
+    && (state.status !== 'idle' || state.activeSessions.length > 0)
+  ) {
+    persistManagedChatSessions(state.activeSessions);
+  }
+});
+
 export const ensureGlobalSessionsLoaded = async (fallbackActive?: Session[]): Promise<LoadResult> => {
   const state = useGlobalSessionsStore.getState();
   if (state.hasLoaded && state.status !== 'error') {