Why I Built Tabstronaut for VS Code 🚀

I'm Jon Taylor, a developer who often switches between features, bug fixes, and side projects—and I always felt... messy.

Every time I reopened VS Code, my tabs would reset. The mental overhead of "Where was I?" became my daily routine. I tried vaulting tabs, writing lists, even pinning files—none really worked.

Then I thought: What if I could just save groups of open files? A click later, I'm back in my "Feature A" context.

Building a Cosmic Tab Manager

Tabstronaut began as a weekend experiment to let me:

• Save open tab sets and name them ("UI cleanup," "Bug 12345")
• Restore those contexts instantly
• Share setups via import/export
• Drag-and-drop tabs or entire groups into place

What started as a utility to organize my "mess" turned into something I realized others needed too. With each user request, it evolved:

• Support for Jupyter notebooks
• Keybindings (Ctrl+Alt+1–9) for quick restores
• UI refresh and a space-themed logo

Real Feedback, Real Impact

I didn’t build this in isolation—users suggested features that made it into v1.3:

• Drag-and-drop group management
• Export/import tab groups for sharing
• A fresh logo and UI polish

It's now used daily by devs who want less context-switch friction and more time coding in flow.

What's Under the Hood

• No dependencies—just pure TypeScript using VS Code's extension API
• Groups store file URIs, timestamps, color-coding
• You can auto-close other tabs on restore, undo deletions, archive sessions... it handles it all

Why It Matters

I've faced projects where productivity stalls just because context feels fuzzy. Tabstronaut bridges that gap, bringing order to chaos and flow to focus.

If managing tab overload resonates, give it a try:

👉 Install Tabstronaut

🔧 Explore the code on GitHub

Let me know what you think—feature requests always welcome!

– Jon