Using Flockdeck
Projects
Each open project has a tile in the rail down the left of the window: two letters, with the full name and folder in its tooltip, and a click switches to it. Open a project, under the tiles, opens the projects dialog at the folder browser; Ctrl+Shift+O does the same from the keyboard. The dialog also switches between the projects already open, and closes them.
The rail starts as icons alone. Ctrl+B widens it into a panel of icons and names, or folds it back; widened, drag its right edge (or use the left and right arrow keys once it has the keyboard) to whatever width suits you. Both are kept, and are what a new window opens onto.
Several projects stay open at once and switching does not stop anything.
The other project's agents keep working. Its tile carries a pulsing cyan badge
while they do, and an amber one if any of them starts waiting on you while you
are elsewhere; amber wins when both are true. With the rail widened, the count
of waiting (▲) or working (●) agents is written beside the project's name.
Each project keeps its own tabs, its own layout, its own restored conversations, and its own default agent and model. The repository you want Codex on gets Codex from the plain one-keystroke split, while everything else goes on getting Claude Code.
Two at once, side by side
Switching shows one project at a time. To watch two of them together, split a pane into another project: the ⊞ beside a project in the projects dialog, or Split into project in the command palette. The new agent works in that project while sitting on this tab, and its header carries the project's name so the tab still says which is which.
The tab goes on belonging to the project it was made in, and is saved with that project's layout. Reopening it brings the other project back too, since the agent on it belongs there, and closing that project stops the agent wherever it is being shown.
Opening one
The picker offers the projects you have opened before, and a directory browser that flags git repositories, so a project is two clicks away. You can also type or paste a path: Enter browses to it, and Open this folder opens whichever folder the browser is showing.
The eight most recent projects are shown, with the rest a click away, and the
× beside one takes it off the list. Once more than one project is open, each
open one has a × of its own that closes it, after asking if any of its
agents is working or waiting on you.
Grouping several directories into one project
A project can be more than one directory (sibling repositories, or a repo alongside a plain folder of docs or notes), treated as one: they share a name and a tile in the rail, the switcher shows one entry instead of several unrelated-looking ones, and an agent in one can see what the others are doing.
Group open projects…, at the top of the projects dialog's Open list once two or more projects are open, ticks two or more of the projects already open and merges them into one, named however you like. Add directory…, offered on an existing project's own row, adds another into it without leaving the dialog. It is the same browser used to open a project, which flags git repositories but does not require one: a plain folder joins just as readily.
A grouped project's row expands (▸ / ▾) to show every member. Clicking a member's name goes straight to it rather than wherever the project was last left; its Agent and Shell buttons open a tab there without switching first, and × splits it back out into a project of its own. That does not close it, and touches nothing on disk.
A member does not need a git repository. One that has none simply has nothing to show in Ctrl+Shift+S or Ctrl+Shift+G. Every other part of the project works the same either way.
Managing the list
Every project, open or not, carries a small row of its own controls:
- ✎ Rename gives it a name of its own, shown everywhere the project's name appears (the rail, the top bar, the switcher, another project's pane headers) in place of the one taken from its folder. Renaming to nothing goes back to that one.
- Archive keeps a project out of the Recent list without touching anything on disk or closing it if it is open; it moves into its own Archived section, folded away behind a button until you ask to see it. Unarchive brings it back. Archiving the project you are working in does not close it. It simply stops cluttering the picker the next time it is closed.
- ▲ ▼ Move reorders a project within the Recent or Archived list it is in. A list nobody has reordered still sorts by when it was last used, as it always did; moving one project the first time puts the whole list in an order you keep from then on.
- × (Recent and Archived only) drops a project from the list, the way it always has. Nothing on disk is touched, and opening the folder again puts it straight back.
Default agent…, offered on the project you are in, is the same per-project default the agent picker's own "Set as default for" checkbox saves (see Agents and models), reached here without starting a pane first.
From the command line
flockdeck -C ~/code/api
This does not start a second set of agents. It finds the instance already running, hands it the directory, and opens a window onto it, so the project joins the session you already have.
Closing a project closes its panes, which stops its agents and ends what was started in them, as closing each pane would; if an agent in it is working or waiting, you are asked first, and a locked pane in it stops it closing. Switching away does not.