In case you haven't figure this out yet: what you are looking for is the excellent virtualenvwrapper package. It is a wrapper around python's virtualenv (go figure) and, while it is commonly referred to when taking about python environments, it is actually a very generic tool that satisfies your use case.

Installation

pip install virtualenvwrapper

or

easy_install virtualenvwrapper

and add initialisation stuff into your shell config (~/.zshrc, ~/.bashrc)

export WORKON_HOME=$HOME/.virtualenvs
export PROJECT_HOME=$WORKON_HOME/projects
export PIP_VIRTUALENV_BASE=$WORKON_HOME
export PIP_RESPECT_VIRTUALENV=true
source /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh

Usage

# create your env
mkvirtualenv my_project

# edit per project hooks
vim ~/.virtualenvs/my_project/bin/{postactivate,preactivate,predeactivate,etc}

# work in this env
workon my_project

You also have generic hooks in ~/.virtualenvs/{postactivate,postdeactivate,etc} that are called every time you workon any_project.

So, for example, having the line export HISTFILE="$VIRTUAL_ENV/bash_history" in the ~/virtualenvs/postactivate hook means that the $HISTFILE variable will be expanded every time to a different project.

Copy & Paste this to your .zshrc:

Cursors are using local history:

bindkey "${key[Up]}" up-line-or-local-history
bindkey "${key[Down]}" down-line-or-local-history

up-line-or-local-history() {
    zle set-local-history 1
    zle up-line-or-history
    zle set-local-history 0
}
zle -N up-line-or-local-history
down-line-or-local-history() {
    zle set-local-history 1
    zle down-line-or-history
    zle set-local-history 0
}
zle -N down-line-or-local-history

If you need also key bindings (CTRL + cursors) to step through the global history add also this to your .zshrc:

bindkey "^[[1;5A" up-line-or-history    # [CTRL] + Cursor up
bindkey "^[[1;5B" down-line-or-history  # [CTRL] + Cursor down

To make this work the option SHARE_HISTORY (see 16.2.4 History) needs to be enabled. Run setopt and check if "sharehistory" is listed. If not add setopt sharehistory to your .zshrc. Then one can use set-local-history as we did above. The documenation says:

By default, history movement commands visit the imported lines as well as the local lines, but you can toggle this on and off with the set-local-history zle binding. It is also possible to create a zle widget that will make some commands ignore imported commands, and some include them.

Note that by default global history is used (and all functions end with "zle set-local-history 0", i.e. local history is disabled). So pressing CTRL + R will search the global history by default (which makes sense in most cases).

This is quite similar to the solution by @mpy, but ready for copy & paste. It overwrites the cursor keys up and down. I used this mail list entry.

See also:

• http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Doc/Release/Zsh-Line-Editor.html
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9502274/last-command-in-same-terminal/9518734?noredirect=1#comment15415094_9518734