Recent projects sidebar order does not update when switching active workspace
What happened
In the Codex Windows desktop app, the sidebar "Recent projects" grouping does not appear to reorder projects by recent activity after switching/opening a project.
Environment
- OS: Windows
- Codex desktop app package: Microsoft Store / WindowsApps
- Appx package observed locally: OpenAI.Codex_26.506.2212.0_x64__2p2nqsd0c76g0
- Repository target: openai/codex
Evidence from local inspection
The persisted global state has:
sidebar-organize-mode-v1:recentactive-workspace-roots: changes when switching the active projectproject-order: remains in its previous order unless a separate add/remove/drop path updates it
A read-only inspection of the packaged app indicates:
- The project grouping/sorting code orders sidebar project groups from persisted
PROJECT_ORDER/project-order. - The main-process handler for
electron-set-active-workspace-rootupdatesACTIVE_WORKSPACE_ROOTSandWORKSPACE_ROOT_OPTIONS, but does not updatePROJECT_ORDER. - Some other paths do update
PROJECT_ORDER, for example adding remote projects or certain workspace-root option flows, so the "recent project" order can become stale depending on how the user switches projects.
Expected behavior
When "Recent projects" is selected, switching/opening a local project should move that project to the top of the recent project list, or the project list should otherwise be derived from actual recent project activity.
Actual behavior
The active workspace changes, but the project list can remain ordered by stale project-order, so "Recent projects" appears not to work.
Possible fix
When handling electron-set-active-workspace-root, also update PROJECT_ORDER using the selected root, roughly:
projectOrder = [root, ...existingProjectOrder.filter((entry) => entry !== root)]
and notify any state listeners needed for the sidebar to refresh.
8 Comments
There is also a regression in newest version where By Project and Recent project no longer order it differently/properly. It was working before.
<img width="426" height="372" alt="Image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/8438e33a-eff8-43c1-aff0-1d766adf4c66" />
Shouldn't recent projects, move all projects up that have had new threads in them? Mine doesn't do this is this intended behaviour?
it was working that way, now it doesn't. It was broken in latest releases. Hoping they fix it but as you can see not many people noticed ;)
seemingly resolved
Yes it it resolved, although one thing that would be cool for this is when it's sorted by last updated it would also keep sorting even after all threads are removed.
Somehow this is back with the new chatgpt and codex combo @DevDengChao
Yup it's back. No longer able to organize things properly
Noticed the same