cogpit-memory

name	cogpit-memory
description	CLI tool for Claude Code session introspection -- retrieves conversation history, tool calls, thinking, sub-agent/team activity, full-text search, and session discovery. All output is JSON to stdout.

Cogpit Memory -- Session Context CLI

CLI tool that gives any AI assistant memory of past Claude Code sessions. Retrieve conversation history, tool usage, thinking, and sub-agent activity via a layered command structure. Also supports full-text search across all sessions and session discovery/listing.

Always start with session discovery or the overview (Layer 1), and drill into specific turns or sub-agents only as needed. Use search when you need to find content rather than browse known sessions.

Prerequisite: Bun must be installed (uses bun:sqlite for FTS5 search).

Step 1 -- Verify the tool works

bunx cogpit-memory --help

If this prints usage info, proceed to Step 2. If bunx is not available, install the package globally:

npm install -g cogpit-memory

Then use cogpit-memory directly instead of bunx cogpit-memory.

Step 2 -- Find sessions

List recent sessions

# List recent sessions (default: last 7 days, up to 20 results)
bunx cogpit-memory sessions

# Filter by working directory
bunx cogpit-memory sessions --cwd /path/to/project

# Customize limit and time window
bunx cogpit-memory sessions --limit 50 --max-age 30d

Options:

Flag	Default	Description
--limit	20	Max results
--max-age	7d	Time window: 7d, 12h, 30d
--cwd	all	Filter by working directory

Response: array of session summaries with sessionId, cwd, model, firstMessage, lastMessage, turnCount, status, mtime.

Get current session for a directory

bunx cogpit-memory sessions --current --cwd /path/to/project

Returns the most recently active session for the given working directory. The --cwd flag is required when using --current (defaults to the current working directory if omitted).

Step 3 -- Layer 1: Get session overview (ALWAYS call this first)

This gives you every user prompt and AI reply, plus a tool usage summary per turn. You must call this before Layer 2 or Layer 3 -- it provides the turnIndex and agentId values you need for drill-downs.

bunx cogpit-memory context <SESSION_ID>

Response shape:

{
  "sessionId": "abc-123",
  "cwd": "/path/to/project",
  "model": "claude-opus-4-6",
  "branchedFrom": null,
  "compacted": false,
  "turns": [
    {
      "turnIndex": 0,
      "userMessage": "Fix the auth bug",
      "assistantMessage": "I found the issue...",
      "toolSummary": { "Edit": 2, "Read": 3 },
      "subAgents": [
        {
          "agentId": "a7f3bc2",
          "name": "researcher",
          "type": "Explore",
          "status": "success",
          "durationMs": 12300,
          "toolUseCount": 8,
          "isBackground": false
        }
      ],
      "hasThinking": true,
      "isError": false,
      "compactionSummary": null
    }
  ],
  "stats": {
    "totalTurns": 5,
    "totalToolCalls": 23,
    "totalTokens": { "input": 45000, "output": 12000 }
  }
}

Key fields:

• userMessage -- the human's full prompt text (null for synthetic turns, images shown as [image attached])
• assistantMessage -- the AI's full text response (null if only tools ran)
• toolSummary -- tool name to count (e.g., {"Read": 5, "Edit": 2})
• subAgents -- summary of sub-agents that ran in this turn. Fields status, durationMs, toolUseCount may be null for older sessions
• hasThinking -- whether thinking blocks exist (boolean only; full text is in Layer 2)
• compacted -- true if the session was compacted (early context compressed)

Step 4 -- Layer 2: Get turn detail (one turn at a time)

Use this to drill into a specific turn. Get thinking, full tool call inputs/outputs, and sub-agent summaries in chronological order.

bunx cogpit-memory context <SESSION_ID> --turn <TURN_INDEX>

Response shape:

{
  "sessionId": "abc-123",
  "turnIndex": 0,
  "userMessage": "Fix the auth bug",
  "contentBlocks": [
    { "kind": "thinking", "text": "Let me analyze...", "timestamp": "..." },
    { "kind": "text", "text": "I found the issue.", "timestamp": "..." },
    {
      "kind": "tool_calls",
      "toolCalls": [
        { "id": "tc1", "name": "Edit", "input": { "file_path": "/a.ts" }, "result": "done", "resultTruncated": false, "isError": false }
      ],
      "timestamp": "..."
    },
    {
      "kind": "sub_agent",
      "agents": [
        { "agentId": "a7f3bc2", "name": "researcher", "type": "Explore", "prompt": "Find auth files", "resultText": "Found 3 files...", "status": "success", "durationMs": 12300, "toolUseCount": 8, "isBackground": false }
      ],
      "timestamp": "..."
    }
  ],
  "tokenUsage": { "input": 8000, "output": 2500 },
  "model": "claude-opus-4-6",
  "durationMs": 15000
}

Key details:

• contentBlocks kinds: thinking, text, tool_calls, sub_agent, background_agent
• Tool call result is truncated at 10,000 chars -- check resultTruncated: true
• Tool call result may be null if the tool hasn't returned yet
• Sub-agent blocks show prompt + result text. For full sub-agent conversation, use Layer 3

Make separate requests per turn -- do not try to batch multiple turns in one call.

Step 5 -- Layer 3: Get sub-agent / team member detail

Drill into a specific sub-agent's full conversation. Returns the same shape as Layer 1 (an overview of the sub-agent's own turns).

bunx cogpit-memory context <SESSION_ID> --agent <AGENT_ID>

Get the AGENT_ID from Layer 1's subAgents[].agentId field.

Response shape:

{
  "sessionId": "abc-123",
  "agentId": "a7f3bc2",
  "name": "researcher",
  "type": "Explore",
  "parentToolCallId": "tc5",
  "isBackground": false,
  "teamContext": null,
  "overview": {
    "turns": [ "..." ],
    "stats": { "..." }
  }
}

The overview field has the exact same shape as Layer 1. You can then drill into specific sub-agent turns:

bunx cogpit-memory context <SESSION_ID> --agent <AGENT_ID> --turn <TURN_INDEX>

This returns the same shape as Layer 2.

Team context

If the sub-agent is a team member, teamContext will be populated:

{
  "teamContext": {
    "teamName": "admin-ui-redesign",
    "role": "layout-dev",
    "currentTask": { "id": "3", "subject": "Redesign layout.tsx", "status": "in_progress" }
  }
}

Note: Team members using tmux backend are not accessible via this command (they run as separate sessions).

Discovery chain

The typical workflow for drilling into sub-agent activity:

1. Call Layer 1 to get the session overview
2. Look at turns[].subAgents[] to find agent IDs
3. Call Layer 3 with the --agent flag to get that sub-agent's overview
4. Call Layer 3 + --turn to drill into a specific sub-agent turn
5. If the sub-agent itself had sub-agents, repeat from step 2 using the sub-agent's overview

Session Search -- Find keywords across sessions

Search for keywords across all sessions or within a specific session. Searches everything: user messages, assistant responses, thinking blocks, tool call inputs/results, sub-agent messages, sub-agent tool calls, and compaction summaries.

When to use search vs Layer 1:

• You know the session -> Use Layer 1 overview, then drill with Layer 2/3
• You need to find which session discussed something -> Use search first, then drill into hits

Basic usage

# Search across all recent sessions (last 5 days)
bunx cogpit-memory search "authentication"

# Search within a specific session
bunx cogpit-memory search "authentication" --session <SESSION_ID>

# Search with custom time window and more results
bunx cogpit-memory search "authentication" --max-age 30d --limit 50

# Case-sensitive search
bunx cogpit-memory search "AuthProvider" --case-sensitive

Options

Flag	Default	Description
--session	all sessions	Scope to single session
--max-age	5d	Time window: 5d, 12h, 30d
--limit	20	Max returned hits
--case-sensitive	false	Case sensitivity

Response shape

{
  "query": "authentication",
  "totalHits": 47,
  "returnedHits": 20,
  "sessionsSearched": 8,
  "results": [
    {
      "sessionId": "abc-123",
      "hits": [
        {
          "location": "turn/3/userMessage",
          "snippet": "...need to fix the authentication flow before...",
          "matchCount": 2
        },
        {
          "location": "turn/5/toolCall/tc_abc/result",
          "toolName": "Read",
          "snippet": "...export function authentication(req, res)...",
          "matchCount": 1
        },
        {
          "location": "agent/a7f3bc2/turn/1/assistantMessage",
          "agentName": "researcher",
          "snippet": "...found 3 authentication-related files in...",
          "matchCount": 1
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Location format

Locations map directly to Layer 2/3 drill-down commands -- use them to fetch full context:

• turn/{i}/userMessage -- user prompt -> drill with --turn {i}
• turn/{i}/assistantMessage -- AI response -> drill with --turn {i}
• turn/{i}/thinking -- thinking blocks -> drill with --turn {i}
• turn/{i}/toolCall/{id}/input -- tool call input -> drill with --turn {i}
• turn/{i}/toolCall/{id}/result -- tool call result -> drill with --turn {i}
• turn/{i}/compactionSummary -- compaction summary -> drill with --turn {i}
• agent/{agentId}/... -- sub-agent content -> drill with --agent {agentId} then --agent {agentId} --turn {i}

Typical workflow

1. Search for keyword: bunx cogpit-memory search "auth"
2. Pick a hit from results (e.g., sessionId: "abc-123", location: "turn/3/assistantMessage")
3. Get full turn context: bunx cogpit-memory context abc-123 --turn 3
4. If hit is in a sub-agent, get agent overview first: bunx cogpit-memory context abc-123 --agent a7f3bc2

Performance notes

• Cross-session search uses a raw-text pre-filter -- files that can't match are skipped before expensive parsing
• Default 5-day window keeps search fast; increase --max-age only if needed
• Single-session search (--session flag) is much faster than cross-session
• Typical cross-session search: ~150 sessions in ~1-2 seconds

Index management

The search index is an FTS5 trigram database at ~/.claude/cogpit-memory/search-index.db. Most commands work without the index (falling back to raw file scanning), but indexed search is significantly faster.

# Show index stats (session count, staleness, DB size)
bunx cogpit-memory index stats

# Rebuild the full index from scratch
bunx cogpit-memory index rebuild

Quick reference

Goal	Command
List recent sessions	bunx cogpit-memory sessions
Sessions for a directory	bunx cogpit-memory sessions --cwd <path>
Current session for a directory	bunx cogpit-memory sessions --current --cwd <path>
Session overview (always first)	bunx cogpit-memory context <sessionId>
Turn detail	bunx cogpit-memory context <sessionId> --turn <N>
Sub-agent overview	bunx cogpit-memory context <sessionId> --agent <agentId>
Sub-agent turn detail	bunx cogpit-memory context <sessionId> --agent <agentId> --turn <N>
Search across sessions	bunx cogpit-memory search "<query>"
Search single session	bunx cogpit-memory search "<query>" --session <sessionId>
Index stats	bunx cogpit-memory index stats
Index rebuild	bunx cogpit-memory index rebuild

Default to Layer 1 only. Drill into Layer 2/3 only when you have a specific reason.