sesame

name	sesame
description	Search past coding sessions with Sesame local BM25 search. Use for ranked multi-word queries, tool-call searches, or listing recent sessions when exact lookup is too strict.

Sesame - Session Search

Sesame indexes coding agent sessions into SQLite FTS5 and ranks results with BM25.

When to use

Use sesame when you need:

• Multi-word topic search ("nix infra cleanup", "publish workflow changesets")
• Tool-call oriented search (--tools, --tool bash, --path package.json)
• Skill-oriented search (--skill vitest, --skill-path /skill-library/)
• Session discovery / paging (no query or "*" with filters and --exclude)

Use find_sessions for quick exact keyword lookups. Use read_session after you identified the session to inspect.

CLI

Search

sesame search "query"
sesame search --after 7d
sesame search "query" --json
sesame search "query" --cwd /path/to/project
sesame search "query" --after 7d
sesame search "query" --before 2026-01-01
sesame search "query" --limit 5
sesame search "query" --tools
sesame search "query" --tool bash
sesame search "query" --path package.json
sesame search "query" --skill vitest
sesame search "query" --skill-path /skill-library/
sesame search "query" --exclude <session-id> --exclude <session-id>

Special query to list sessions instead of full-text match:

sesame search "*" --limit 20
sesame search "*" --cwd /path --after 2w --exclude <session-id>

Skills

sesame skills
sesame skills --after 1m --actor user
sesame skills --cwd /path/to/project --json

Lists skills used across indexed sessions with session counts, most used first. Use it to find the exact name for --skill.

Index / status / watch

sesame index
sesame index --full
sesame status
sesame watch
sesame watch --interval 30

Practical workflow

1. Run sesame search "query".
2. If results are empty or stale, run sesame index or keep sesame watch running.
3. Narrow using --cwd, --after, --before, --tools, --tool, --path, --skill, or --skill-path.
4. To answer "which sessions used skill X", run sesame skills to get the name, then sesame search "*" --skill <name>.
5. Use --exclude to page through additional results across repeated searches.
6. Use --json when another tool/agent needs structured output.

Date formats

• Relative: 7d, 2w, 1m
• Absolute: YYYY-MM-DD (ISO date)

Notes

• Multi-word searches use all terms first, then any-term fallback only when filters leave no strict matches. JSON output includes matchMode and matching entry provenance.
• Date filters use each session's modification time.
• Titles and active checkpoints are searchable. Discovery-tool result bodies are not indexed.
• Skill usage records who loaded it (actor: user for /skill:name slash commands and ?name autocomplete blocks, agent for SKILL.md reads). --skill matches the skill directory name exactly, case-insensitively. Search output lists each result's skills.
• Scores are normalized to 0.00-1.00 for display. Higher is better.
• sesame watch runs an initial index pass, then re-indexes on change.