[FEATURE] Allow renaming session titles after creation

[miyagawatomoya-dev]

Preflight Checklist

• I have searched existing requests and this feature hasn't been requested yet
• This is a single feature request (not multiple features)

Problem Statement

Summary
Currently, session titles in Claude Code are auto-generated from the first message and cannot be changed afterward. This makes it difficult to manage multiple sessions, especially when sessions span different phases or topics.

Requested Feature
Allow users (or agents) to rename session titles after creation, either via:

A UI option (right-click or edit button in the session list)
A CLI command (e.g., claude session rename "new title")
An API/tool accessible to the agent itself during a session
Use Case
When managing multiple long-running sessions across projects, it's hard to distinguish which sessions are active, completed, or on hold — purely from auto-generated titles. Being able to rename sessions (e.g., adding ✅ for done, or clarifying the topic) would significantly improve session management UX.

Additional Context
It would also be valuable if agents could rename sessions programmatically during execution, so the session title can reflect the actual outcome rather than the initial prompt.

Proposed Solution

Summary
Currently, session titles in Claude Code are auto-generated from the first message and cannot be changed afterward. This makes it difficult to manage multiple sessions, especially when sessions span different phases or topics.

Requested Feature
Allow users (or agents) to rename session titles after creation, either via:

A UI option (right-click or edit button in the session list)
A CLI command (e.g., claude session rename "new title")
An API/tool accessible to the agent itself during a session
Use Case
When managing multiple long-running sessions across projects, it's hard to distinguish which sessions are active, completed, or on hold — purely from auto-generated titles. Being able to rename sessions (e.g., adding ✅ for done, or clarifying the topic) would significantly improve session management UX.

Additional Context
It would also be valuable if agents could rename sessions programmatically during execution, so the session title can reflect the actual outcome rather than the initial prompt.

Alternative Solutions

No response

Priority

Critical - Blocking my work

Feature Category

CLI commands and flags

Use Case Example

No response

Additional Context

No response

[drinkendure]

+1 — strong use case for the "agent-accessible API" variant.

I run a bunch of domain-specific skills (daily briefing, ad review, ambassador onboarding, research scouts). Each conversation drifts through several topics, and the auto-generated title from the first message stops being useful within a few turns. Finding the right session in the sidebar later is genuinely hard.

What would solve it: a tool or hook Claude itself can call mid-conversation — something like set_session_title("Meta ads Q2 review") — so a skill can rename the session once the topic becomes clear, or update it when the conversation pivots.

A CLI/UI rename is nice, but the programmatic path is what unlocks the skill-based workflow.

[mpbejmer-triona]

+1 for the agent-accessible variant.
Concrete workflow: my dev-task skill sets up a worktree + branch named
like 12345_short-description for each ticket. I'd like the skill to
call a set_session_title tool at setup time so the chat title
mirrors the branch name. I juggle many sessions concurrently, and
a matching title lets me pick the right one at a glance instead of
scanning first-message text.
Bonus 1: the skill could retitle again when the session pivots (e.g.
append ✅ after PR merge), keeping the sidebar accurate without
manual upkeep.
Bonus 2: an agent-callable archive_session tool would let the skill
close out the session itself once the ticket is done and the worktree
is cleaned up.

[ardeleanuiulia-ux]

I am also interested in this - extremelly important for better organizing ourselves. Thanks!

[travismcelfresh]

+1. Use case for context: I routinely run 5–10 parallel Claude Code windows across worktrees on the same project. The auto-generated topic chip is the only visual disambiguator between windows in macOS Mission Control / tab switcher / /resume. When a conversation drifts off its original topic, the chip stays pinned to whatever the model summarized from the first few turns, which makes it actively misleading rather than just stale — I've tabbed into the wrong window more than once.

A /rename <slug> or /title <slug> command (or a settings.json key for an auto-pin) would solve this cleanly.

Workarounds I've confirmed work today while we wait for a real fix:

1. Easiest — keep the conversation, just relabel (most recent session in cwd):

   claude --name "new-label" -c
   

   Exit the current window and relaunch — -c / --continue auto-picks the most recent session in the working directory and applies the new --name.

2. Pick a specific session to relabel:

   claude --name "new-label" --resume
   

   Same idea but opens the session picker if you need to relabel something other than the most recent one.

3. Fork off with a new label, leave the original alone:

   claude --name "new-label" --fork-session
   

   Branches the conversation into a new session so the old one stays intact under its old name.

All three rely on --name being supplied at startup, which is the only documented lever today. None of them let you change the label mid-session without a relaunch — hence the ask.

[natewalton]

Use case from AIT Protocol (https://github.com/natewalton/ait-protocol) — a local-first AT Protocol instance where each Claude Code session is a network account with a handle like @alice.test.

When a session joins the network via the MCP join tool, it would be ideal to append the minted handle to the session title — e.g., Page load bar positioning → Page load bar positioning — @alice.test — so the desktop session picker can differentiate joined sessions and surface which network identity each one represents. Without this, users running multiple concurrent AIT-joined sessions can't tell from the picker which session is which agent on the network.

Today there's no programmatic path from inside an MCP tool to mutate the title. Filesystem writes to claude-code-sessions/.../local_<uuid>.json are unsupported and race with the auto-titler. A set_session_title API (or any mutation surface callable from an MCP tool or PostToolUse hook) would close the gap cleanly.