Session Search

---
name: session-search
description: Find context from past Claude Code (CLI) and Claude Cowork (desktop) sessions on this Mac. Use when the user wants to recall something they did before but can't find it , phrasings like "where did I work on X", "find that session where I…", "when did I last do Y", "pull up the conversation about Z", "that time I built/tried/discussed …". Searches by kind (code/cowork), time range, title, working directory, or free-text content across all transcripts.
---

# session-search

> **Platforms: Claude Code / Cowork and Codex.** `find_sessions.py` and `show_session.py` detect the host (via the `platform` stamp `install.sh` writes, or `AI_FIRST_PLATFORM`) and route to the right store: Claude Code (`~/.claude/projects`) + Cowork transcripts, or Codex rollouts (`~/.codex/sessions/**/rollout-*.jsonl`). Both support list, time/cwd/title filters, and full-text `--grep`. **Antigravity is not supported**: its IDE conversations are AEAD-encrypted at rest (`~/.gemini/antigravity/conversations/*.pb`) and its unencrypted CLI store carries no parseable turn content, so the skill prints a clear "not available" message and exits.

Two scripts in `scripts/` locate past sessions and dump their content:

- `find_sessions.py` , discover + filter sessions (metadata + optional full-text grep).
- `show_session.py` , print a single session's conversation (user/assistant turns) in readable form.

Both read directly from disk , no API calls, no auth. They resolve paths from `$HOME` so they work for any macOS user:

- Claude Code CLI: `~/.claude/projects/*/\*.jsonl`
- Claude Cowork: `~/Library/Application Support/Claude/local-agent-mode-sessions/*/*/local_*/audit.jsonl` (sibling `local_*.json` holds title/metadata)

## How to use

Start narrow, widen if needed. Prefer `--grep` for content recall; use metadata filters to scope.

### Step 1 , find candidate sessions

```bash
scripts/find_sessions.py --grep "recruitee logo api"      # content search
scripts/find_sessions.py --title "rippling"              # title substring
scripts/find_sessions.py --cwd "Recruitee"               # Code sessions under matching cwd
scripts/find_sessions.py --since 2026-03-01 --until 2026-03-31
scripts/find_sessions.py --kind cowork -n 30             # 30 most recent Cowork
```

Combine freely. Output is a table by default; add `--json` for structured piping.

`--grep PATTERN` is a regex (case-insensitive). It searches message text inside every transcript and prints 1-2 matching snippets per session along with the session row. Use this when the user remembers a phrase or topic, not a title.

### Step 2 , pull full context from a specific session

```bash
scripts/show_session.py <path-from-step-1>       # full conversation
scripts/show_session.py <path> --grep "logo"     # only turns mentioning "logo" (with ±1 surrounding turn)
scripts/show_session.py <path> --tail 20         # last 20 turns
```

The script strips tool calls/results and renders user + assistant text only. Output is markdown-ish; pipe to a pager if long.

## Filter reference

`find_sessions.py` flags:

- `--kind {code,cowork,all}` , default `all`
- `--since YYYY-MM-DD`, `--until YYYY-MM-DD` , by last-activity mtime
- `--title TEXT` , substring, case-insensitive (Cowork uses the stored title; Code uses the first user message)
- `--cwd TEXT` , substring match against the working directory recorded in Code transcripts
- `--grep PATTERN` , regex across transcript body
- `-n, --limit N` , cap results (default 50, `0` = all)
- `--snippets N` , how many matching lines to show per session under `--grep` (default 2)
- `--json` , machine-readable output

## Tips

- If the user's description is vague, run `--grep` with 2–3 alternative phrasings in parallel before narrowing.
- For Code sessions the "title" is a best-effort extraction of the first user message; for Cowork it comes from the `.json` sidecar written by the desktop app.
- A session can have many transcripts (resumes, forks). `find_sessions.py` lists each transcript separately; that's usually what you want , the most recent one is the live thread.
- Transcripts can be large (several MB). When dumping content to the user, prefer `show_session.py --grep` or `--tail` over the full file.