Projects and Auto-Suspend: A VS Code Workspace Per Folder

Most of us don't work on one project. There's the app, the API it talks to, a side project, and the repo you only open when something breaks. On a laptop you'd have a VS Code window for each. Coder IDE gives you the same thing from your phone or browser: a separate project for each folder on your computer, a sidebar to switch between them, and a timer that puts the ones you've stopped using to sleep.

One project per folder

A project is a VS Code editor for one folder on one of your computers. You can have as many as you like on the same machine, and each one keeps its own extensions and editor state. The Python tools you need for the data project don't load in your web app, and the tabs you had open in one project are still there when you come back to it.

Projects run independently. Restarting one, or updating its extensions, doesn't touch the others.

To add one, use New project in the editor's sidebar or the add button on your dashboard. You can pick a recent folder from that computer, type a path, or start empty and open a project from inside the editor. Coder IDE uses your computer's projects folder as the default location, which you can change in the desktop app or on the dashboard.

Switching without leaving the editor

When you open an editor, a sidebar on the left lists the projects on that computer. Each one shows its state at a glance: Running, Starting…, Stopping… or Stopped. Tap another project and you switch to it, without going back to the dashboard and without losing your place in the one you left.

The sidebar is built to stay out of the way:

• Drag its edge to make it wider or narrower. Double-click the edge to reset it.
• Drag it closed if you want the whole screen for code. Collapse it to a column of small tiles, or expand it again with one tap.

Your projects are there in any browser, including on an iPad, and inside the Android app's editor.

Managing projects from the sidebar

Each project in the sidebar has a start and stop button and a menu with the things you'd otherwise need a terminal for:

• Rename gives it a name you'll recognise, such as "billing-api" instead of a folder path.
• Restart restarts the editor for that project. It's the fix for an extension that's stuck or a language server that stopped answering. It's available while the project is running.
• Update extensions updates the extensions installed in that project, whether it's running or not.
• Delete removes the project and its editor data on your computer. It asks first, and it can't be undone. Your project folder and files stay where they are.

Starting, stopping, renaming and deleting take effect right away, both in the sidebar and on your dashboard. You don't wait for anything to catch up.

Reloading keeps your terminals running

Sometimes the editor itself needs a reload: after changing a setting, or when the page has been in the background on your phone for a long time. Reloading the editor in Coder IDE works like reloading the window in desktop VS Code. Your terminals stay open, and the dev servers running in them keep running.

That matters more than it sounds. Your dev server, a long test run or a Claude Code session in a terminal all survive a reload, so you can refresh without worrying about what you'll have to restart.

Separately, Claude Code keeps working on your computer when your phone sleeps, you switch apps, or your connection drops. Coming back reconnects you to the same editor with your tabs and chats in place.

Auto-suspend for idle editors

Every running editor uses memory on your computer. With several projects open, the ones you haven't touched since last week are still sitting there. Auto-suspend stops an editor nobody has used for a while, and it's off until you turn it on.

You choose the timeout per computer, in two places:

• On the dashboard, each computer's card has an Auto-suspend switch. Turn it on and pick how long an editor can sit idle, from 15 minutes up to 4 hours.
• In the desktop app, Settings, Editor has Editor auto-suspend, with choices from Off through 10, 20 and 30 minutes to 1 hour.

The two stay in sync. Change it on the dashboard and the desktop app shows the new value, and the other way round. If you pick a time on the dashboard that the desktop app doesn't list, it shows up there as its own choice.

A suspended project shows as Stopped. Open it from the sidebar or the dashboard and it starts again on its own.

If an editor has been running for eight hours or more with nobody connected and no auto-suspend set, the dashboard points it out and offers to turn auto-suspend on with one tap.

Auto-suspend waits for Claude

An editor can look idle to you while Claude Code is busy in it. You started a refactor from your phone, put the phone away, and nobody has typed in that editor since.

Auto-suspend accounts for that. If a Claude Code task is running in a project, auto-suspend waits for it to finish before stopping the editor. Your timer won't cut off work in progress, so you can set a short timeout without worrying about long tasks.

The same rule applies to updates. When Coder IDE updates itself on your computer, it waits until Claude finishes what it's working on.

Auto-suspend versus disconnect

There's one more timer that's easy to confuse with auto-suspend. In the web app's Settings, Idle disconnect timeout closes your connection to the editor after a period of inactivity on that browser or device. It doesn't stop anything on your computer.

• Idle disconnect is about your screen: it stops the open tab from holding a connection when you've walked away.
• Auto-suspend is about your computer: it stops editors nobody is using, to free up memory.

You can use either, both or neither.

Wrap-up

Projects give each folder its own VS Code, with its own extensions and state, all on the same computer and one tap apart in the sidebar. Restart or update extensions without a terminal, reload without losing your terminals, and let auto-suspend tidy up the editors you've forgotten about, without ever interrupting Claude.

To see where your projects live on your computer, take the desktop app tour.

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