When working with multiple plans, loading another file or plan into the editor causes any other plan present to be removed from the tabbed interface. This makes it difficult to view code alongside plans, or navigate multiple plans that are being developed or run simultaneously.
Steps to Reproduce
Create a plan
Open a plan in the editor
Open something else (another plan, a text document, source code)
Observe that the new document loads in the editor but causes the previously opened plan to disappear from the tab bar, necessitating manual locating and reloading of the plan file to see it again.
(The opposite case is true here as well - if a non-plan file (e.g. code) is open and a plan file is opened, the plan file causes the other file tabs to disappear, and shows only the opened plan file and its tab).
Expected Behavior
Plan files should behave like normal files in the editor; multiple plan files should be able to be opened at the same time, and opening a plan file or files shouldn’t cause other files shown in the editor to disappear from the editor tab bar.
Hey @rsb, thanks for the recording, that made it clear.
What you are seeing is the editor’s “preview” tab behavior rather than anything specific to plans. In your video every tab title is in italics, which marks it as a preview tab. Cursor keeps only one preview tab per editor group, so when you single-click a file link in the chat (a plan or a code file) the new file takes the place of the previous preview tab. That is why it looks like the plan disappears when you open something else, and the other way round.
Three ways to keep them around:
Double-click the tab (or right-click it and choose “Keep Open”). It turns non-italic and stays put when you open other files.
Press Ctrl+K then Enter while the tab is active, which does the same thing from the keyboard.
If you would rather never have preview tabs, open Settings (Ctrl+,), search for “workbench.editor.enablePreview” and turn it off. Every file and plan then opens as a normal tab.
I could not reproduce it on my side because I was opening plans from the “View Plan” button on the plan card, which always opens a normal tab. Opening from the “View Plan” button is another way to get a plan that stays open.
Let me know if a non-italic tab ever disappears on you, that would be a different issue!
What is more recent is plans being files you can open as editor tabs. Since plans usually live outside your project folder and you mostly reach them from links in the chat, they land in preview mode more often than regular code files, which is probably why it stood out now.
If you would rather never see preview tabs, “workbench.editor.enablePreview”: false in your settings turns them off entirely. Otherwise double-clicking the tab (or Ctrl+K then Enter) keeps any tab you care about.