Losing chat history in empty windows

[theReynald]

• Copilot Chat Extension Version: v0.16.1
• VS Code Version: 1.90.1
• OS Version: macOS Sonoma
• Logs:

Watch video of issue here:

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Open VS Code
2. Click 'Show Chats' button

Image:

[roblourens]

Chats are per-workspace. Do you have previous chats in that workspace?

[znorris]

In my opinion, non-workspace chat history needs a home, too. For example, I just opened a new VS Code window and began by talking with the copilot. I spent time writing up just what I wanted, and the response looked really good. I then created a new folder for the project, and of course, VSCode opened a new project window and closed my old one. But I didn't think that it would do that. So now I have a new project, but my history is completely gone, and I feel crushed that I have to find all the right words to get a good response again.

[roblourens]

I see that chats in empty windows don't get saved.

@bpasero I use a workspace-scoped Memento from getMemento(StorageScope.WORKSPACE, StorageTarget.MACHINE). If I close the empty window and open a new one, then I don't get my stored data back. That's probably right for UI state in general, but for something that represents user data, I'd like to keep it around in the next empty window. Is there a way to do that? I could keep it in global storage myself?

It probably gets a little weird when you open multiple empty windows, since they would be overwriting each others' state, but I'm ok with that.

[bpasero]

Yes in that case you would have to use global storage. For empty windows we invent a fake workspace identifier (which is actually derived from the backup path for "hot exit" in that window) and so as long as that window restores, that state comes back. But any new empty window will have a different workspace identifier that is only valid for as long as the window restores (e.g. because of unsaved files).

[roblourens]

Is there any way to hook into how it works for hot exit, so that having chats in that window would also cause it to use the same workspace identifier and get the chat data back? Or does that not make sense for chat?

[bpasero]

You should be able to get that ID via IWorkspaceContextService.getWorkspace().id.

If you want to participate in hot exit in general, its more complex: you would have to start using working copies and participate in working copy lifecycle. We introduced working copies to have a way for notebooks and custom editors to have parity with text file models. I am not sure its a good fit though because our assumption is that a working copy can always be shown as editor and if its dirty, the dirty indication shows.

[roblourens]

Thanks. I should probably just keep these chats in global storage, and do my best to merge them between windows.

[roblourens]

This can't be perfect, but it should be good enough to avoid losing data in normal cases!

[Gladskih]

Is it possible to find a file which contains history of a "chat without workspace"? I ahve just lost a couple of hours of hard work with unexpected history wipe exactly like described above- #1309 (comment)
I do not even know English enough to express my frustration.

Version: 1.92.1 (user setup)
Commit: eaa41d57266683296de7d118f574d0c2652e1fc4
Date: 2024-08-07T20:16:39.455Z (4 days ago)
Electron: 30.1.2
ElectronBuildId: 9870757
Chromium: 124.0.6367.243
Node.js: 20.14.0
V8: 12.4.254.20-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.22631