nushell-history

name

nushell-history

description

This skill should be used when inspecting, querying, or rewriting the user's Nushell command history. Relevant when the user asks "what did I run", "show my recent commands", "what was I trying", "find commands I ran in <dir>", "remove these history entries", "move/retag these history entries to <path>", "fix the cwd on these rows", or when you need to understand what the user has been doing in a directory by looking at their shell history.

Nushell history — inspect and rewrite

The user's command history is in a sqlite database (file_format = sqlite). Use the builtin history command for reading and nu-history-tools for mutation. Never hand-roll SQL against history.sqlite3 — the builtin and the module already cover every case.

Inspection (read-only)

history --long returns a table with these columns:

Column	Type	Notes
item_id	int	Stable primary key
start_timestamp	datetime	Already a datetime — no decoding
command	string	The command line
session_id	int
hostname	string
cwd	string	Absolute working directory
duration	duration
exit_status	int	0 on success
idx	int	Row number in the returned table

Recipes

# Last 20 commands the user ran in the current directory
history --long | where cwd == $env.PWD | last 20

# Last 20 failures, anywhere
history --long | where exit_status != 0 | last 20

# Search for what the user tried — e.g. apt-get fumbles in this dir
history --long | where cwd == $env.PWD | where command =~ '(?i)apt|dpkg'

# All commands in a specific directory, with readable timestamps
history --long | where cwd =~ 'git-learning' | select start_timestamp command exit_status

# Recent activity across all dirs
history --long | last 40 | select start_timestamp cwd command exit_status

where is the only filter you need — there's no SQL syntax to learn. If the user references "what I just tried", "my last commands", or asks you to interpret what they were doing — run one of these instead of asking.

Mutation

The nu-history-tools module (at /Users/user/git/ai-sandbox-dev-container/nu-history-tools) provides the write side:

use ~/repos/nu-history-tools/nu-history-tools *   # or the absolute path above

Retag cwd (move exercises out of the wrong directory)

update-entries writes piped rows back to sqlite, keyed by item_id. Whatever columns you pipe in get written; the rest are left alone. Friendly names (item_id, command, duration) are auto-translated to sqlite column names.

# Move all apt-get exercises from git-learning to a dedicated apt-learning dir
history --long
| where cwd =~ 'git-learning'
| where command =~ '(?i)apt|unminimize|dpkg'
| update cwd '/Users/user/git/apt-learning'
| select item_id cwd
| update-entries

The select item_id cwd step is mandatory — update-entries refuses unknown columns (e.g. idx from history --long) so the caller has to be explicit about what gets written. Backups go to <history-dir>/history-backup-<timestamp>.nuon automatically; pass --no-backup to skip.

The same shape works for any field:

# Fix a typo across history
history --long | where command =~ 'mistpyed' | update command 'mistyped' | select item_id command | update-entries

Remove entries

query-from-history --remove deletes rows matching piped-in filter values. It selects on the first column it recognizes (id, command_line, session_id, cwd) — pipe just the column you want to filter by.

# Delete failed apt-get fumbles
history --long | where command =~ 'apt get ' | query-from-history --remove

Look up rows from sqlite by piped filter values

query-from-history (without --remove) re-queries sqlite for full row data matching piped values. Useful when history --long doesn't give you all the columns you need.

Schema gotcha

The friendly column names from history --long differ from the underlying sqlite columns:

Friendly (history --long)	sqlite (history table)
item_id	id
command	command_line
duration	duration_ms

update-entries translates these automatically. If you write raw SQL via open $nu.history-path | query db ... (don't, unless you must), use the sqlite names.