Hello Cursor team,
Problem In the left-hand Agent (or chat) history list, workspaces are labeled with relative path segments (e.g. parent folders plus the repo folder). Even when I open a repository with File → Open Folder at the repository root, the history still shows path-like labels. When I work on many projects, these labels look too similar and it is hard to tell at a glance which project each conversation belongs to.
Current behavior History entries appear to use multi-segment or relative paths as the primary label for distinguishing workspaces.
Requested behavior
Use a short, human-readable workspace title as the primary label—for example the root folder basename (last segment of the workspace path), or the name field from a multi-root .code-workspace file when present.
Show the full path (or a copyable path) in a tooltip on hover, or as secondary/subtitle text, so users can still disambiguate when two projects share the same folder name under different parents.
Why this matters The history sidebar is the main way to resume past work across projects. Path-heavy labels increase cognitive load and make scanning the list slower; basename or user-defined names match how developers mentally identify projects.
Optional If basename collisions are common, you could append a minimal disambiguator (e.g. parent folder) only when needed, or rely on the tooltip for the full path.
Thank you for considering this for a future release.
Hey, thanks for the detailed request and the screenshot. The issue is clear in the image: four different workspaces show the same truncated label excellent_science_technolo..., and it’s impossible to tell which project is which without opening the chat. The actual names (H5 cash register, WeChat mini program, Flutter logging, etc.) are only visible in individual chat titles, not in the workspace label itself.
The proposal makes sense:
The main label should be the basename of the last path segment, or the name from the .code-workspace file if it exists.
Show the full path as a tooltip on hover or as a subtitle, so even if basenames collide, users can still tell projects apart.
Optionally add a disambiguator (parent folder) only when basenames match.
I’ll pass this to the team as a UX improvement for the Agent history sidebar. I can’t share an ETA for feature requests, but if there’s an update on this, I’ll reply in the thread. If you have more ideas for related cases (like multi-root workspaces or Remote SSH behavior), add them here too.
Strong +1 on this. Ideally I’d add my workspace entries (or open the same .code-workspace / folder I always use) and be done. Then, it should show the name I chose, not owner/repo or a parent path prefix. Right now it’s inconsistent: some workspaces show with an org prefix, others without, even for similar repos.
Related pain: in the Agent view I sometimes see what looks like the same project twice in the workspace list. I’m not sure if that’s from something non-standard in my workspace files or from how Agent view dedupes identities, but clearer display names (and predictable deduping) would help a lot.
In this case they are both called “my-project”.
In the cursor Agent Window, they appear in the same name (“my-project”), which is kind of confusing for switching fast between conversations
Is there a way to rename / tell it to use the parent directory as well in the workspace name?
Hey, quick update: the request is on the radar, but there’s no implementation status yet, and I can’t share an ETA. Once there’s progress, I’ll post an update here.
On current behavior: there’s no way to manually rename a workspace in the Agent sidebar right now, and when two folders have the same basename like in your example my-project and opensource/my-project, they show up with the same name. That’s exactly what the improvement is meant to fix, a readable name plus a way to tell apart identical basenames.
On helping and open source, thanks for the enthusiasm, but that’s not something I can promise or comment on. If you’ve got more ideas for related cases like multi-root workspaces or Remote SSH, drop them in the thread and I’ll pass everything to the team.
+1 this would be extremely helpful - we have a monorepo and I have multiple remote dev spaces to keep track of work. because they are all dev containers, they just all have the same path
right now I need to rename the current thread to keep track of the remote. I would love to be able to rename the workspace to something I can understand
+1 to this request. Really missing this.
Moreover, for long paths, hover does not help either, as the popup has trimmed path value (image 1). And when hovering over the folder/project, it does not show anything at all (image 2).
