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feat: Add project switching to Ctrl+P command palette #11843
Description
Summary
Add project names as searchable items in the Ctrl+P command palette, so users can quickly switch between projects by typing part of the name.
Motivation
Currently, Ctrl+P only searches commands and files within the current project. For users with many projects (10, 50, or even hundreds), there's no fast way to switch between them — you have to visually scan the sidebar icons, which only show a single initial letter.
This was requested by a community member who works with hundreds of open projects and finds the sidebar hard to navigate at that scale. Adding projects to the command palette gives a keyboard-driven way to find and switch projects instantly.
Proposed Behavior
- Ctrl+P search results include project names alongside existing file/command results
- The name shown is whatever is displayed in the sidebar (auto-generated from directory path, or custom renamed name)
- Selecting a project switches to it (same as clicking it in the sidebar)
- For users with only a few projects, this change is non-invasive — project entries simply appear in the list alongside everything else
- For users with many projects, this becomes essential for fast navigation
Example
User types: "backend"
Results:
📁 my-backend-api (project)
📄 backend/routes.ts (file)
📄 backend/config.ts (file)
Context
Complements the dynamic sidebar sorting feature (#11758 / #11759) — sorting helps keep active projects visible, while this feature helps find any project instantly by name.
Inspired by PyCharm's Ctrl+Shift+O which provides an MRU project list with fuzzy filtering.
Activity
github-actions commentedon Feb 2, 2026
This issue might be a duplicate of existing issues. Please check:
Feel free to ignore if none of these address your specific case.
mguttmann commentedon Feb 2, 2026
mguttmann commentedon Feb 2, 2026
Thanks for flagging the potential duplicates, bot — but these are actually different use cases:
This issue is specifically about fuzzy search in the Cmd+P command palette — type a few characters of a project or session name and jump directly to it. That's the approach that actually scales to hundreds of projects.
Already implemented in PR #11855 — projects and sessions now show up as searchable entries alongside commands and files.
That said, #11855 would also partially address #9088's pain point since users can now quickly find any project by name instead of relying on sidebar icons.
mguttmann commentedon Feb 3, 2026
github-actions commentedon Apr 5, 2026
To stay organized issues are automatically closed after 90 days of no activity. If the issue is still relevant please open a new one.