Folders added to the session gets removed

[IeuanWalker]

I have an application that adds folders to the copilot session directory (i.e. .copilot\session-state\5c3c2c04-099c-4fd2-bfd5-3395bd72cd15)

I have noticed on a few occasions now that the folders I added would disappear.

Is this expected behaviour?

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The reason I add the folders here is that they contain session-based files, so it makes sense to place them in the Copilot session folder, where they will be cleaned up along with the sessions.

[github-actions]

Investigation Findings

Thanks for the question! I investigated the session state directory lifecycle by reviewing the SDK source code (nodejs/src/client.ts, nodejs/src/session.ts) and the session persistence documentation (docs/features/session-persistence.md).

What I Found

Yes, this is expected behavior. The ~/.copilot/session-state/{sessionId}/ directory is treated as session-owned storage. When a session is deleted, the entire directory tree is permanently removed — including any custom folders or files you've placed there.

There are two distinct operations that affect what happens to disk files:

Operation	In-memory resources	Disk files
disconnect() / idle timeout (30 min)	Released	✅ Preserved — session can be resumed
deleteSession()	Released	❌ Permanently deleted — irreversible

If your application (or any cleanup code) calls deleteSession() on a session, the entire folder — including your custom subfolders — will be removed. The SDK docs describe this explicitly: "deleteSession() permanently removes everything, including files on disk."

Likely Cause

The intermittent disappearance suggests one of these:

1. Explicit deleteSession() calls somewhere in your application (including in any session cleanup/TTL loops)
2. Automated cleanup code — the docs show a common pattern of periodically calling deleteSession() on sessions older than a TTL (e.g., 24 hours), which would remove your custom folders too

Recommendation

If you want to keep custom folders tied to session lifetime but also survive deleteSession(), you have a few options:

• Store them outside the session directory (e.g., alongside it under a parallel directory structure) and clean them up yourself using the session.deleted SDK event
• Use session lifecycle hooks (onSessionEnd) to perform cleanup of your own data when a session ends
• If you intentionally want them cleaned up with the session, just be aware that deleteSession() is what triggers the deletion — you can control when that's called

This is reclassified as a usage question rather than a bug. The behavior is working as designed.

Generated by Bug Handler for issue #1004 · ◷

[IeuanWalker]

The session still exists, just the folder I add within it gets removed