Switching branches in a shared Local checkout moves all older sessions for that repo to the top of the session list #4780

Short summary

When the branch changes in a repository's shared Local checkout, every older Local session for that repository moves to the top of the Recent list. This pushes the sessions I was actually working in further down.

Affected version or release

v1.1.29

Installation context

GitHub Copilot desktop app on Windows 11. The issue affects the session list/sidebar and is not specific to a particular repository.

What happened?

When the branch changes in a repository's shared Local checkout, every older Local session for that repository moves to the top of the Recent list. This pushes the sessions I was actually working in further down.

The older sessions also get relabeled with the new branch name, even though they were created on different branches and were never used on the new one.

Steps to reproduce

Have several older Local sessions for the same repository.
Switch the branch of that repository's shared checkout. In my case, the switch happened during work in one of the sessions.
Look at the Recent list.

Expected behavior

Older sessions keep their position based on their own last activity, and keep their original branch label.

Additional context

The desktop log shows the app processing a shared-checkout branch change for 11 workspaces in the same second:

2026-10-14T21:42:53Z Detected shared Local checkout branch change
workspace_id= old_branch="develop" new_branch=
(repeated for 11 workspace IDs)
The sidebar afterward showed exactly 11 sessions for that repository at the top, all labeled with the new branch.

One affected session's events.jsonl ends on August 26, 2026, with no later activity. It still moved to the top on October 14, right after the branch change.

GitHub Copilot app version: 1.1.29
Bundled Copilot CLI: 1.0.95-3
OS: Windows [version]