Codex Session Distill Search

Codex Session Distill Search

Purpose

Summarize local Codex session activity across a date or time range without exposing raw private transcripts. Use distill with oMLX gemma-4-e4b-it at http://127.0.0.1:8001/v1 to compress broad session timelines, then read only the few source logs needed to verify the summary. The exact oMLX API model id is gemma-4-e4b-it-8bit.

This skill complements codex-conversation-lookup: use this skill for broad "what did I do" searches; use codex-conversation-lookup for a specific UUID.

Workflow

1. Interpret the user's time range. If they state a custom day boundary, use it. If they say "yesterday" or "today" and no boundary is stated, use the local timezone and mention the concrete date range.
2. Run the helper to build safe session candidates:

python3 "${CODEX_HOME:-$HOME/.codex}/skills/codex-session-distill-search/scripts/scan_codex_sessions.py" --date YYYY-MM-DD

3. Pipe compact broad output through distill with oMLX gemma-4-e4b-it and an explicit English question:

python3 "${CODEX_HOME:-$HOME/.codex}/skills/codex-session-distill-search/scripts/scan_codex_sessions.py" --date YYYY-MM-DD --compact \
  | distill --host http://127.0.0.1:8001/v1 --model gemma-4-e4b-it-8bit --api-key "${OMLX_API_KEY:-1234}" \
      "Pick the dominant workstreams. Return max 8 rows: thread_id | cwd | topic | status_or_risk. Exclude the current recap/test task if present. Do not quote private transcript text."

4. Treat the distilled result as an index. If distill returns only headers, schema text, or "insufficient information", fall back to the helper output and narrow --limit or the time range. Do not use the built-in distill 1.7B local model as the default for this broad session-summary task; it is faster but produced weak headers-only summaries in testing.
5. Re-open only the top source logs needed to verify cwd, time, completion state, aborted turns, commands, and patches.
6. Answer with a synthesized work recap in the user's language, not a thread-title dump.

Helper Options

Use one of:

scan_codex_sessions.py --date 2026-05-23
scan_codex_sessions.py --since 2026-05-22T12:00:00 --until 2026-05-23T06:00:00
scan_codex_sessions.py --days 3

Useful flags:

• --codex-dir PATH: default ${CODEX_HOME:-~/.codex}
• --limit N: cap candidate sessions
• --chars N: max characters per safe snippet
• --compact: one line per session for distill
• --jsonl: machine-readable output for custom processing

Summary Rules

• Identify the dominant workstream from evidence, not from thread count alone.
• Group related sessions by repo/cwd, goal, and outcome.
• Separate completed work, interrupted work, investigations, commits/pushes, and unresolved risks.
• Use exact dates and time ranges when the user used relative words like today/yesterday.
• Prefer Traditional Chinese unless the user asks otherwise.
• Do not paste raw transcripts, full prompts, tokens, shell snapshots, or secrets.
• Keep message snippets short and paraphrase unless exact wording is essential.

Verification

Before finalizing:

• Check the top 3-8 candidate logs directly when the distill summary depends on them.
• Inspect turn_aborted, patch_apply_end, command calls, and final assistant messages for completion state.
• If a recovered task belongs to another repo and the user asks to continue it, read that repo's AGENTS.md and README.md before editing.
• Report any gap: missing logs, ambiguous day boundary, failed distill, or insufficient evidence.

Fallback

If distill is unavailable or fails, use the helper output directly, but narrow the time range or lower --limit before reading raw logs. Do not broaden into unrestricted rg across all ~/.codex logs unless the helper output is insufficient.