session-logs

name	session_logs
description	Discover and analyze Claude Code session logs from ~/.claude/projects, including finding the current session and extracting tool calls, user messages, and conversation history

Claude Code Session Logs Skill

This skill helps discover and analyze Claude Code session logs stored in ~/.claude/projects/. Use this when you need to:

• Find the current session log
• Extract conversation history for analysis
• Verify what tools were used in a session
• Mine session data for followup suggestions
• Debug session state or tool execution

Finding the Current Session

Sessions are stored per-project in ~/.claude/projects/ with directory names based on the working directory path.

Project directory naming:

• /code/gitlab.com/agentydragon/ducktape → ~/.claude/projects/-code-gitlab-com-agentydragon-ducktape/
• All / become -, path is prefixed with -

Important: The current pwd may differ from the session's original cwd if directories were changed during the session. The helper script accounts for this by:

1. Searching recent sessions from ALL projects (last hour)
2. Scoring by recency first (most important signal)
3. Using git branch and cwd as secondary signals

Discovery script:

# Find current project directory
PROJECT_DIR=$(pwd | sed 's|/|-|g')
SESSION_DIR=~/.claude/projects/$PROJECT_DIR

# Get 5 recently modified session files
# NOTE: Current session may not be #1 (parallel instances, background tasks)
find $SESSION_DIR -type f -name "*.jsonl" -printf "%T@ %p\n" 2>/dev/null | \
  sort -rn | head -5 | cut -d' ' -f2-

# Check each candidate to identify current session
# Match by: recent timestamp, matching cwd, matching git branch
for session in $(find $SESSION_DIR -type f -name "*.jsonl" -printf "%T@ %p\n" 2>/dev/null | sort -rn | head -5 | cut -d' ' -f2-); do
  echo "=== $session ==="
  tail -1 "$session" | jq -r '{timestamp, cwd, gitBranch, sessionId}'
done

Use the helper script for convenience:

~/.claude/skills/session_logs/find-current-session.sh

Session Log Format

Structure: JSONL (one JSON object per line)

Key fields in each entry:

• type: Entry type ("user", "assistant", "tool_use", "tool_result", etc.)
• message: Contains the actual content (nested structure)
• timestamp: ISO 8601 timestamp (e.g., "2025-12-01T19:35:59.995Z")
• sessionId: UUID of the session
• cwd: Working directory at time of entry
• gitBranch: Current git branch

Tool use entries:

{
  "type": "assistant",
  "message": {
    "content": [
      {
        "type": "tool_use",
        "id": "toolu_...",
        "name": "Edit",
        "input": {
          "file_path": "/path/to/file.py",
          "old_string": "...",
          "new_string": "..."
        }
      }
    ]
  },
  "timestamp": "2025-12-01T19:32:48.590Z",
  "sessionId": "9aea9a46-9010-4876-ac8c-27b08cc9cee1"
}

User message entries:

{
  "type": "user",
  "message": {
    "content": [
      {
        "type": "text",
        "text": "User's message here"
      }
    ]
  },
  "timestamp": "2025-12-01T19:25:00.000Z"
}

Common Queries

Show recent Edit operations

CURRENT_SESSION=$(~/.claude/skills/session_logs/find-current-session.sh | head -1)

grep '"type":"tool_use"' "$CURRENT_SESSION" | \
  jq -r 'select(.message.content[0].name == "Edit") |
    "\(.timestamp): Edit \(.message.content[0].input.file_path)"'

Show recent Bash commands

grep '"type":"tool_use"' "$CURRENT_SESSION" | \
  jq -r 'select(.message.content[0].name == "Bash") |
    "\(.message.content[0].input.description): \(.message.content[0].input.command[0:80])"'

Extract all tool calls

grep '"type":"tool_use"' "$CURRENT_SESSION" | \
  jq -r '.message.content[0].name' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn

Get user messages

grep '"type":"user"' "$CURRENT_SESSION" | \
  jq -r '.message.content[0].text' | head -20

Find files modified in session

grep '"type":"tool_use"' "$CURRENT_SESSION" | \
  jq -r 'select(.message.content[0].name == "Edit" or .message.content[0].name == "Write") |
    .message.content[0].input.file_path' | sort -u

Session statistics

echo "Session: $CURRENT_SESSION"
echo "Session ID: $(tail -1 "$CURRENT_SESSION" | jq -r .sessionId)"
echo "Total entries: $(wc -l < "$CURRENT_SESSION")"
echo "Tool uses: $(grep -c '"type":"tool_use"' "$CURRENT_SESSION")"
echo "User messages: $(grep -c '"type":"user"' "$CURRENT_SESSION")"

Use Cases

For /followups command:

• Verify files modified in session still exist on disk
• Extract conversation TODOs and incomplete actions
• Find all Edit/Write operations to check against git status

For debugging:

• Check what Bash commands were executed
• Verify tool parameters that were used
• Trace conversation flow and reasoning

For delegation:

• Provide session logs to subagents for analysis
• Extract specific conversation segments
• Mine historical context for decision-making

Notes

• Session logs update in real-time as the session progresses
• Multiple sessions can be active simultaneously (parallel instances)
• Agent subprocesses create separate session files (prefixed with agent-)
• Session files persist across Claude Code restarts
• Very large sessions may have truncated context but full tool history