Bug: Unpinned children appear under Pinned after their parent is archived #5059

Environment

• GitHub Copilot desktop app version: 1.1.32, retrieved from the serving app's get_app_info tool.
• OS: Windows, reported OS version 10.0.26300.0.
• Shell used to collect diagnostics: PowerShell 7.6.6.
• Installation context: Local desktop app with repository-backed sessions.

Summary

Ten unpinned child sessions appear as top-level entries under the sidebar's Pinned section while their parent is archived. The child sessions still retain their parent and coordination relationships. The user did not intend to archive the parent and wants to restore the original hierarchy.

Steps to Reproduce

The following describes the observed state and a candidate reproduction sequence, not a separately verified reproduction:

1. Create a repository-backed parent session and multiple coordinated child sessions.
2. Leave the child sessions unpinned.
3. Archive the parent while child sessions remain active. In the reported case, the parent was discovered already archived; the action or mechanism that archived it is unknown.
4. Inspect the sidebar's Pinned section and the remaining child sessions.

Expected Behavior

Unpinned children should not appear as pinned top-level sessions simply because their parent is archived. Remaining sessions should have a coherent, recoverable hierarchy, and restoring the archived parent should be discoverable.

Observed Behavior

• The supplied screenshot shows ten child sessions as top-level rows beneath the Pinned heading.
• The user confirms those children are not pinned.
• Session inspection confirms that the parent has archived: true and is absent from the active session listing.
• All ten children retain both creator_session_id and coordinating_creator_session_id pointing to that same parent; they have not been detached.
• The parent is associated with a merged pull request, but there is no evidence establishing whether merging, a manual action, or another mechanism archived it.
• The available session tools expose archive and navigation operations but no restore/unarchive operation. Navigating to the parent was attempted; restoration has not been completed.

Impact

Ten unpinned sessions clutter the Pinned section, the parent is missing from the active hierarchy, and the user cannot recover the intended grouping through the available agent tools.

Additional Context

The pin state is user-reported; the session inspection responses do not expose a pin-state field. The root cause of the sidebar placement has not been established. No session metadata has been modified as a workaround.

The original screenshot and session names are omitted to avoid publishing unrelated personal project information. The state described above was confirmed through the screenshot, the user's report, and session metadata.

Related

• Archiving a parent with nested children session doesn't archive children too #780 -- closed report about archiving a parent without its children. This report focuses on the remaining unpinned children appearing under Pinned with their parent links intact.
• [General] Hard to find where the archived sessions go #1010 -- closed report about difficulty finding archived sessions.