Find, archive, and restore chats
Use the project sidebar to search your chats and spec tasks, start new threads, archive finished work, and bring it back.
The sidebar lists your chats and spec tasks grouped by project, most recently active first. Everything you started in a project appears under that project's heading; anything not tied to a project is grouped under None.
Finding a chat or task
Type in the Search box at the top of the sidebar to filter every group at once. Groups with no matches disappear, so a search across a busy org narrows to a handful of rows.
Each group shows its most recent items. If a group has more, Show more loads the next batch; Show less collapses back to the preview. Click a project heading to collapse the whole group — collapsed groups are remembered in your browser, per organisation.
Drag the sidebar's edge to resize it, between 280 px and 640 px (360 px by default). The width is also remembered per organisation.
Creating a project from the sidebar
New project in the sidebar header opens the project dialog without leaving your chats. You can attach an existing repository or create a new one from the same dialog. Helix opens a new thread in the project once it's created.
Starting a new thread
Click New thread (or press ⌘⇧O / Ctrl+Shift+O). In a project, the prompt box offers:
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Plan / Build | Plan creates specifications first; Build goes directly to implementation |
| Agent picker | Chooses the coding agent for this task. Lists only agents you have access to; your last choice is remembered per organisation |
| Reasoning effort | Off, Low, Medium, or High — appears only when the selected model supports it, and defaults to Medium |
Reasoning effort applies to that chat. Leaving it Off disables reasoning entirely. For the model-level and agent-level settings, see Choose and configure a code agent.
Reading a task chat's context
A chat attached to a spec task carries a metadata row showing where the work is happening: the project (click it to open that project's specs), the primary repository, the working branch, and the number of any open pull request the task has raised.
Archiving a chat or task
Archiving hides an item from the sidebar without deleting it. Use the archive action on the row, and it disappears from the active list.
Most items archive immediately. A confirmation appears only when archiving would stop something that is still running — an external-agent chat, or a spec task that Helix cannot confirm has finished and released its sandbox. Plain chats, org-agent chats, and completed or merged tasks archive without a prompt.
When the confirmation does appear, it tells you what will stop: a running task agent, or the chat's external agent. Shared org-agent desktops are never stopped by archiving.
Restoring an archived item
Click Show archived to switch the sidebar to the archived view — the same project grouping, listing only archived chats and tasks. Choose Unarchive on any row to return it to the active list; because unarchiving never stops anything, it never asks for confirmation. Back to active chats returns to the normal view.
If the archived view is empty, it shows Nothing archived.
From the API
Archiving is also available on the REST API:
PATCH /api/v1/sessions/{id}/archivewith{"archived": true}archives a session, andfalserestores it.GET /api/v1/sessions?archived=truereturns archived sessions; the default listing excludes them.