Zend certified PHP/Magento developer

How do I keep the same pane layout when I re-open VS Code web?

I am using VS Code web in GitPod. When I open my workspace I drag certain panes closed and leave just the terminal full screen. How do I save this layout so that every time I re-open my GitPod project, those panes are already closed?

VS Code settings sync was suggested to me, but it’s already turned on. I read in the documentation that you can edit the settings.json file, but I don’t know what commands to use. Also, I don’t know if editing that file would work for GitPod. If I edit that file, I would need to commit it to the repo for it to be saved, unless VS Code just remembers my settings universally rather than per project. But usually you state configuration of a GitPod project in a .yaml file. So could I enter the necessary VS Code settings commands into a GitPod .yaml style instead?