Boring sidebar: keep the Working section when grouping by project

[spadaval]

Problem

Turning on Settings → Labs → Boring sidebar (group by project) turns off the Working section, even when Working section is switched on. Running threads end up back inside their project folders as ordinary one-line rows. When a folder is closed, the only sign of them is a dot on its header.

Project folders and the Working section answer different questions. Folders say which project a thread belongs to. Working says what is running right now, across every project. The grouped sidebar is useful, but there's no real reason it has to lose Working. The only reason I found is a comment in Sidebar.tsx (from #21039): "Folders already separate the work, so boring mode has no Working shelf."

Proposal

Keep the Working section in boring mode and have it work the same way as in the flat sidebar:

• Pinned, then the project folders, then Working at the bottom just above Snoozed and Settled, where it already sits in the flat sidebar.
• A thread in Working shows as a two-line card, as it does in flat mode, and leaves its folder while it runs. When the turn ends, it goes back to its folder.
• The existing Working section switch controls it in both modes, so anyone who wants the current boring behaviour can turn it off.

A project whose threads are all running loses its folder until one of them finishes. That matches #26387: a folder means something in that project needs you, and a running thread doesn't need you yet. Its card in Working already shows the project.

This is web/desktop only. Mobile has no project-folder mode upstream.

Before / after

Both are screenshots of the real web app with the same data: three threads running in two projects. On the left is main. On the right is a local prototype, which only drops the folderGroups === null condition that turns Working off in boring mode. The three running threads move from their folders into Working and show as the usual cards with branch and status. plop's only thread is running, so plop has no folder until that thread finishes.

Is this direction OK to open as a PR?

Drafted with Claude Code (Claude Opus 5.5).

[loumizhu]

I second this idea. The sidebar could be way more useful by having more features.
I did this in Figma https://www.figma.com/design/kfVGM0rr4CyropF7i18mdJ/T3-Code-SideBar?node-id=17-3548&t=STorHwTKk9IhUzoV-4

Compacting all of that information without too much spacing would let you see more of the conversation if there is too many of them. And we don't have to scroll.Using cards style will help separate them easily.

The current one in desktop is showing the title of the project multiple times which is not useful information and taking up space for no reason.
The text below the conversation title should be one of the last message of the agent so you would have a small idea of what is going on before clicking.

I think using color coding in all of the aspects of the list would help quickly spot what the conversation is, the project it's about.
Also using colors conventions in the messages.

Having the filters accessible without drop down is faster.

Having bigger icons for the project might be better to support them. Even better is if it detects automatically the icon of the project.

[jieyuexing]

Note

Written by @jieyuexing with help from Claude Opus 5.5 (in T3 Code).

+1. I use the boring sidebar every day.

I often run many agents in different projects at the same time. In each folder, running threads, waiting threads, and threads that need my reply are mixed together. So I have to check every row to find the threads that need me.

The Working section in the flat sidebar fixes this problem. I want to keep the folders and also have the Working section. I like the idea here: use the same Working section switch in both modes.