Feature Request: Persist Copilot Chat History with Project for Portability

[burkeholland]

Feature Request: Persist Copilot Chat History with Project for Portability

Problem

Currently, Copilot Chat history is not tied to the project folder. If a user opens the same project on a different machine, or moves the project folder, the chat history does not follow the project. This makes it difficult to maintain context and continuity across different environments or team members.

Proposed Solution

• Allow Copilot Chat history to be saved locally within the project folder (e.g., in a hidden directory like .vscode/copilot-chat-history/ or similar).
• When a project is opened, VS Code should automatically load the chat history associated with that project.
• If the project is moved or opened on another machine (e.g., via Git or file transfer), the chat history should be available as long as the history files are present.
• Optionally, provide settings to enable/disable this feature and to manage history retention.

Benefits

• Chat context and history are always available with the project, improving continuity and collaboration.
• Teams can share chat context when working on the same project.
• Reduces the need to re-explain context or lose valuable discussions when switching environments.

Steps to Reproduce (Current Behavior)

1. Open a project in VS Code and use Copilot Chat.
2. Close VS Code and move the project folder to another machine, or open it in a different environment such as a Codespace.
3. Observe that chat history is not available with the project.

Expected Behavior

• Chat history should be available whenever the project is opened, regardless of machine or environment, as long as the history files are present in the project folder.

[vs-code-engineering]

Hi Burke Holland (@burkeholland). As a member of the team, you can help us triage this issue by referring to https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-copilot/wiki/Copilot-Inbox-Tracker and assigning an owner directly.

[indcoder]

Excited to see this feature; I had proposed something similar a few months back; but it couldn't gather enough community upvotes. microsoft/vscode-copilot-release#8240 Hopefully this issue fares much better.

[SilverBut]

Want this feature. I want to track chats happened within the workspace so team member can trace what happened.

[vs-code-engineering]

We closed this issue because we don't plan to address it in the foreseeable future. If you disagree and feel that this issue is crucial: we are happy to listen and to reconsider.

If you wonder what we are up to, please see our roadmap and issue reporting guidelines.

Thanks for your understanding, and happy coding!

[reece]

Please reconsider. I just spent hours unsuccessfully trying to recover chat sessions that became inaccessible entirely due to a directory move. No one would expect to lose chat history with a simple rename/path change.