Creating and switching sessions
- Click + New in the chat toolbar, or run Hermes: New Chat (
hermes.newChat) from the Command Palette, to open a fresh session. - Each open session appears as a tab in the chat panel.
- Click a tab to switch to that session, or run Hermes: Open Session Menu (
hermes.openSessionMenu) to browse and switch sessions from a picker.
Session history
Sessions are persisted in local storage and restored automatically when you reopen VS Code or reload the extension. Messages that were restored from storage — rather than received live in the current connection — are marked with a local-history banner in the chat panel. The local-history banner is a visual indicator only. The agent does not have access to these messages unless you explicitly attach them using context attachment (see below). From the tab bar you can also:- Rename a session by double-clicking its tab label.
- Delete a session by right-clicking the tab and choosing Delete.
Context attachment (session memory)
When the agent resets — because you switched to a new session, changed the model, or switched profiles — a memory picker appears above the input box. The picker lets you select prior messages to include as reference context when you send your next message. Available options:| Option | What it attaches |
|---|---|
| Last 2 | The two most recent attachable messages (user and assistant turns) |
| Last 10 | The ten most recent attachable messages |
| All | All attachable messages, truncated to fit within the context budget if needed |
| Custom | A manual selection; clicking this enters multi-select mode so you can pick individual messages |
| None | No prior context; the agent starts fresh |
hermes.contextAttachVisibility setting:
onNewSession(default) — shows the picker only after a session or model switch.always— shows the picker before every message send.never— disables the picker entirely; no prior context is attached automatically.
The agent’s context resets completely when you switch sessions or change the active model. Local history in the chat panel is view-only — it lets you read what happened in a previous session, but the agent cannot see or reference those messages unless you use context attachment to explicitly carry them forward.