Air Alpha: Option to keep opened chats in a Tool Window

I’d really like to see an option in Air Alpha to keep opened agent chats inside a regular Tool Window instead of having them live only as editor tabs.

Right now, one of the things I like about JetBrains AI is that the Tool Window lets me interact with the agent while I continue working on my code at the same time.

A few things I’d personally like to preserve with Air:

• Keep my code visible while the agent is working.
• Open and close the agent with a keyboard shortcut, just like any other Tool Window.
• Quickly recover the full editor space when I don’t need the agent visible.
• Ask quick questions while still looking at the code I’m referring to.
• Use the agent more like a coding partner that stays available alongside my normal workflow.

I know split view exists, but when I want Air and my code side by side, I usually have to:

1. Open the Air Tool Window.
2. Find the agent/session I’m currently using.
3. Open it, which moves me away from the code I was looking at because the session opens in the editor area.
4. Move the agent tab into a split view.
5. When I want my full-width editor back, close the agent tab and sometimes clean up the split editor group as well.

The editor-tab approach makes sense for a more fully agentic workflow, where the agent itself is the main workspace.

But I think it would be great to also support the other workflow: keeping the agent in a Tool Window for people who still spend most of their time writing, reading, and navigating code themselves, while using AI continuously alongside that work.

Ideally, both options could coexist: editor tabs for people who prefer the current workflow, and a Tool Window for people who prefer keeping the agent beside their code.

There’s already a YouTrack feature request for this:

https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IJAI-2739/Add-option-to-Show-opened-chats-in-Air-tool-window-instead-of-in-Editor-tab-only

If you’d like this option too, you can upvote it there.