Preserve selected branch across project chats

[morgmart]

Category: fix
User Impact: New chats and reloaded sessions stay on the selected project workspace, and the context panel keeps the user's last open or closed state across chats.
Problem: The workspace widget stored branch/worktree choice in memory per session, but new project chats and reload flows resolved from the project's first working directory. That made the UI and agent context feel like they snapped back to main after starting another chat or loading history. The context panel also defaulted closed for each new chat because its open state was tracked per session.
Solution: Inherit the active workspace when creating or reusing a draft chat in the same project, fall back to the session's stored working directory on reload, keep local session metadata synced after prepare/move flows, and persist the context panel open/closed state as a single user preference.

File changes

ui/goose2/src/features/chat/lib/workspaceContext.ts
Adds a focused helper for inheriting workspace context from the active chat when starting another chat in the same project.

ui/goose2/src/features/chat/lib/workspaceContext.test.ts
Covers same-project inheritance, reload fallback from session working directory, and cross-project isolation.

ui/goose2/src/app/AppShell.tsx
Uses inherited workspace context for project chat creation and session reuse, and loads session history from active or stored working directory.

ui/goose2/src/features/chat/hooks/useChat.ts
Falls back to the stored session working directory when compacting and reloading a session without an in-memory active workspace.

ui/goose2/src/features/chat/hooks/useChatSessionController.ts
Keeps local session working-directory metadata in sync after ACP session preparation.

ui/goose2/src/features/chat/stores/chatSessionStore.ts
Stores context panel open/closed state as a persisted user preference instead of defaulting each new chat to closed.

ui/goose2/src/features/chat/stores/tests/chatSessionStore.test.ts
Covers persisting and updating the global context panel preference.

ui/goose2/src/features/chat/ui/ChatContextPanel.tsx
Passes the session working directory into the context panel.

ui/goose2/src/features/chat/ui/ChatView.tsx
Provides the current session working directory to the context panel and reads the persisted context panel preference.

ui/goose2/src/features/chat/ui/ContextPanel.tsx
Reads git state from active context, then session working directory, then project default.

ui/goose2/src/features/chat/ui/widgets/WorkspaceWidget.tsx
Displays and refreshes the active/session workspace path instead of always using the project default path.

Reproduction Steps

1. Open a project chat in ui/goose2 and switch the workspace widget to a non-main branch or worktree.
2. Start another chat in the same project.
3. Confirm the new chat uses the selected workspace path rather than the project's main path.
4. Reload or reselect a session whose working directory is a worktree path.
5. Confirm the workspace widget and git state remain on that stored workspace.
6. Open or close the context panel, then start another chat.
7. Confirm the new chat preserves the last context panel state until the user toggles it again.

Screenshots/Demos

Not captured in this environment. This is a state/persistence fix verified through focused tests and the goose2 pre-push gate.

Verification

• git commit -s -m "Persist context panel preference" ran goose2 pre-commit checks: formatting, pnpm check, pnpm check:i18n, and pnpm typecheck.
• git push ran the goose2 pre-push gate: format/check, i18n, typecheck, Vitest 633 tests, production build, clippy, and Tauri cargo check.
• Pre-push completed successfully; only existing non-blocking symlink/platform and Vite chunk-size warnings were reported.

[DOsinga]

Clean, well-scoped fix. The workspace inheritance logic is nicely extracted and tested, localStorage persistence is defensive, and the fallback chain in getWorkingDir is sensible. All CI green. Approving.

[DOsinga]

Hey @morgmart — this PR has a Lint & Format check failure. Could you run cargo fmt (and/or the UI linter if applicable) and push a fix? Once that's green we can get this merged. Thanks!

[DOsinga]

Code looks good. Fixed the missing patchSession dependency in the handleMoveToProject useCallback that was causing the Biome lint CI failure. The workspace inheritance logic is clean and well-tested.

[chatgpt-codex-connector]

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[chatgpt-codex-connector]

Update local workingDir only when prepare request applies

applyLatestSessionConfig can resolve with applied: false when this request is superseded by a newer one, and in that case the backend may never have switched to this workingDir. Patching local session metadata unconditionally here can leave UI/store state pointing at a directory the backend did not accept (for example when a newer request later fails), which then affects reload/inheritance paths that read session.workingDir. Gate this patch on result.applied (or otherwise reconcile with the winning request) to avoid frontend/backend drift.

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