This issue captures some work in the area of managing ChatModels so that we're set for everything we want to do with managing agent sessions. The primary task is

• ChatModel can live independently of a ChatWidget (Moving chat session stops/interrupts agent #246134)

and in order to do it right, here are some other improvements we can do

• Support creating sessions fully in the background without first opening an editor
  • This should work but no scenario triggers this right now
• ChatModel should have a clear observable state to let consumers watch for it to be waiting on a confirmation, without having to watch the value of a particular response. chat: add requestNeedsInput on the chat model #278171
  • And a timestamp to determine how long the current response has been running chat: add additional timing information on the model #278449
• Try to clean up how the ChatModel/editing session are initialized chat: make creation of the edit session sync #277924 chat: remove waitForReady #277944
  • This is too complicated:

    vscode/src/vs/workbench/contrib/chat/common/chatModel.ts

    Lines 1493 to 1503 in b59493a

    	startEditingSession(isGlobalEditingSession?: boolean, transferFromSession?: IChatEditingSession): void {
    	const editingSessionPromise = transferFromSession
    	? this.chatEditingService.transferEditingSession(this, transferFromSession)
    	: isGlobalEditingSession ?
    	this.chatEditingService.startOrContinueGlobalEditingSession(this) :
    	this.chatEditingService.createEditingSession(this);
    	this._editingSession = new ObservablePromise(editingSessionPromise);
    	this._editingSession.promise.then(editingSession => {
    	this._store.isDisposed ? editingSession.dispose() : this._register(editingSession);
    	});
    	}

  • It makes chat session init async when it doesn't need to be
  • And led to this hack, which is something that makes it hard to work with ChatWidgets:

    vscode/src/vs/workbench/contrib/chat/browser/chatWidget.ts

    Line 775 in b59493a

    async waitForReady(): Promise<void> {

• Have really solid interfaces for working with chat sessions and chat widgets
  • eg, I should be able to say "open this chat session URI" and it "just works" without having to check whether it's already open
  • After a lot of work to fix this, we apparently regressed that the agent sessions view can open multiple copies of the same chat session. Then when you close one, everything breaks.
  • This code

    vscode/src/vs/workbench/contrib/chat/browser/chatSessions/localChatSessionsProvider.ts

    Line 25 in bfe4e1a

    export class LocalChatSessionsProvider extends Disposable implements IChatSessionItemProvider, IWorkbenchContribution {

    should get chat sessions in a much simpler way
  • Register a custom opener so that IOpenerService#open can be used to reveal/open chat sessions easily
• Fully adopt IChatWidgetService#openSession in actions that open chats @roblourens Adopt IChatWidgetService.openSession in more places #278973
• Support moving open chats via IChatWidgetService#openSession @roblourens
• Fix bugs around having multiple chats active
  • Model Picker not working properly when Chat View is opened in a new window vscode-copilot-release#10080 Bad toolbar context
  • Some commands work on the chat view, when you expect them to work on the chat editor. Attaching context might not work when a chat editor is in the background? chat: implement and migrate to IChatWidgetService.reveal/revealWidget #277971
  • History can conflict between editors chat: unify history in different editors #278846
  • Review usages of IChatWidgetService.lastFocusedWidget #278638
• Edit sessions in background ChatModels @connor4312
  • Get rid of keep/undo prompt when switching chat sessions
  • Restore edits in the un-accepted state
• Quick chat sessions should not stay alive in background @roblourens
• Decide experience for informing users of the new behavior @roblourens
• Archiving chats in agent sessions #278825 @bpasero
• 💪 GIve users a way to reapply edits when restoring an old chat session
• ✋ ChatModels survive window reload?
  • Would need to change the way the agent is invoked from VS Code