The VS Code explorer displays folders at the top of a directory.
This is a common hierarchy that I like in most cases.

But I hate it for content.

For content sites — like chan.dev — I prefer alphabetical order.
I want to see my files and folders all mixed up together.

How to change the setting

To change the default behavior, open Settings and find the option for Explorer: Sort Order.

With this option enabled, files and folders are interwoven in the explorer.

Why I prefer mixed sort order

On chan.dev, I have lots of markdown files.
Some of them have images.
And I want to keep those images in a folder nearby.
I ain't tryna faff with Cloudinary or hunt down shared /assets/images folder.
I want them right next to my post.

This makes it easy to keep my place on the file system.

Take it further with workspaces

As mentioned, I prefer the default sort order for most projects.
So, I keep this setting stored in my chan.dev workspace.
And only this project is impacted by the setting.

// chan.dev/.vscode/settings.json
{
  "explorer.sortOrder": "mixed"
}