Iterate over notebooks and combine them into a single panel?

I have an extension that splits left, but when new notebooks open they tab in the same area as the extension. I’m locked into the 1.2.x API and it’s not clear how to manage individual notebooks that are open in the workspace to just combine tab them on a justified right panel next to the already open extension.

I’ve combed through the INotebookTools, INotebookTracker, and NotebookPanel documentation but nothing stands out.