Choose which machine a "No project" chat runs on

[direksethi]

Problem

No-project chats (#13612) are a great addition, but there's no way to choose which machine a no-project chat runs on when more than one environment is connected (for example, a local Mac plus a remote Linux box).

Currently, the machine is picked implicitly. chat.newWithoutProject (⌥⌘N) and the palette's "No project" action use the environment of the currently selected thread (activeThread?.environmentId ?? draft?.environmentId ?? default). If no thread is selected, they fall back to the primary/local environment.

The composer's "Run on" picker doesn't help either. It only appears when the active project exists on more than one environment (availableEnvironments.length > 1). Each environment's scratch project is separate, so a no-project draft only ever lists one machine and the picker never shows.

So the only way to start a no-project chat on a remote machine is a workaround: find and click some existing thread from that machine first, then press ⌥⌘N. If that machine has no threads in the sidebar (e.g. they're all settled), there's no discoverable path. You can't tell this from the "What should we work on? / No project" screen.

Proposal

Any of these would solve it, roughly in order of preference:

1. Show the "Run on" environment picker on no-project drafts whenever more than one environment is connected. Treat "No project" as one logical project that exists on every environment. Its scratch project can be created lazily on the chosen machine, the same way it already is locally.
2. A machine submenu on the "No project" entry in the new-thread palette / heading link (e.g. "No project → MacBook / devbox").
3. A setting for the default environment for no-project chats, so ⌥⌘N doesn't depend on whichever thread happens to be selected.

Why it matters

A remote box is often where you want throwaway work to happen: quick scripts, poking at a server, checking services. Today that requires keeping a placeholder "home directory" project on the remote machine, which is the exact friction no-project chats were meant to remove.

Repro (current Nightly 0.0.45)

1. Connect a second (remote) environment alongside the local desktop one.
2. Select a thread on the local machine, or no thread at all.
3. Start a no-project chat (heading link, palette, or ⌥⌘N).
4. The draft is pinned to the local machine and the composer offers no way to switch it to the remote one.

[scificorp]

Adding another report of this UX problem on macOS, T3 Code Nightly 0.0.46-nightly.20261003.2638: selecting "No project" makes the environment selector disappear. I still need to choose which connected machine runs the conversation, even when it is not associated with a project.

The expected behavior is for environment selection to remain available independently of project selection, and for the selected machine to stay clearly visible before sending a message. Choosing "No project" should not remove that control or force a workaround through another project/thread.

I found the merged fix in #15356 and the closure of #15292 while checking existing reports. Thank you for addressing it. This report describes the installed build above; I have not yet verified a build containing that fix.

[juliusmarminge]

Note

Grok responding on behalf of Julius.

Resolved. #15356 shipped the Run on / machine switch for No project drafts, and #14759 moved that path into shared client-runtime for web and mobile. Closing this discussion as resolved.