Session Finder

Session Finder

Search Pi sessions stored in ~/.pi/agent/sessions/.

Session Location

# Default location
~/.pi/agent/sessions/

# Sessions organized by working directory
~/.pi/agent/sessions/--Users-sn-Projects-myproject--/

Quick Search Patterns

Single Keyword

rg -l "keyword" ~/.pi/agent/sessions/ --glob "*.jsonl"

AND Search (A + B)

Find sessions containing BOTH terms:

rg -l "term1" ~/.pi/agent/sessions/**/*.jsonl | xargs rg -l "term2"

OR Search (A | B)

rg -l "term1|term2" ~/.pi/agent/sessions/ --glob "*.jsonl"

Phrase Search

rg -l "professional website" ~/.pi/agent/sessions/ --glob "*.jsonl"

Smart Search with Context

Show Matching User Messages

TERM="your search term"
for f in $(rg -l "$TERM" ~/.pi/agent/sessions/**/*.jsonl 2>/dev/null); do
  echo "📁 $f"
  rg '"role":"user"' "$f" | head -3 | sed 's/.*"text":"/  → /; s/".*/.../' | cut -c1-120
  echo ""
done

Show Actual Match Context

TERM="professional"
for f in $(rg -l "$TERM" ~/.pi/agent/sessions/**/*.jsonl 2>/dev/null | head -10); do
  echo "🎯 $f"
  rg -o '"text":"[^"]{0,100}'"$TERM"'[^"]{0,100}"' "$f" | head -2
  echo ""
done

Date Filtering

Sessions by Date

# List sessions from today
find ~/.pi/agent/sessions -name "*.jsonl" -mtime 0

# Last 7 days
find ~/.pi/agent/sessions -name "*.jsonl" -mtime -7

# Specific date range (using filename)
ls ~/.pi/agent/sessions/**/*.jsonl | grep "2026-02-05"

Recent Sessions (sorted)

# Most recent first
ls -lt ~/.pi/agent/sessions/**/*.jsonl 2>/dev/null | head -20

Find by Tool/Skill Used

Sessions Using Specific Skill

# Sessions that used HN research
rg -l "hn-research|hn.algolia" ~/.pi/agent/sessions/**/*.jsonl

# Sessions that used browser automation
rg -l "browser-tools|playwright|puppeteer" ~/.pi/agent/sessions/**/*.jsonl

# Sessions with code changes
rg -l '"name":"Edit"' ~/.pi/agent/sessions/**/*.jsonl

Sessions with Specific Commands

# Sessions that ran git commands
rg -l "git commit|git push" ~/.pi/agent/sessions/**/*.jsonl

# Sessions with pip/npm installs
rg -l "pip install|npm install" ~/.pi/agent/sessions/**/*.jsonl

Find by Project

# List all project session directories
ls ~/.pi/agent/sessions/

# Search within specific project
rg "keyword" ~/.pi/agent/sessions/--Users-sn-Projects-myproject--/ --glob "*.jsonl"

Resume & Export

Resume a Session

pi --session /path/to/session.jsonl

Continue Most Recent

pi --continue  # or pi -c

Select from List

pi --resume  # or pi -r

Export to HTML

pi --export /path/to/session.jsonl output.html
pi --export /path/to/session.jsonl  # outputs to stdout

Complete Workflow Example

"Find that session where we discussed X and Y"

#!/bin/bash
# Find sessions matching multiple criteria

TERM1="professional"
TERM2="website"

echo "🔍 Searching for sessions with '$TERM1' AND '$TERM2'..."
echo ""

MATCHES=$(rg -l "$TERM1" ~/.pi/agent/sessions/**/*.jsonl 2>/dev/null | xargs rg -l "$TERM2" 2>/dev/null)

if [ -z "$MATCHES" ]; then
  echo "No matches found."
  exit 0
fi

for f in $MATCHES; do
  echo "📁 $(basename $(dirname $f))"
  echo "   $f"
  
  # Extract first user message for context
  FIRST_MSG=$(rg '"role":"user"' "$f" 2>/dev/null | head -1 | sed 's/.*"text":"//; s/".*//' | cut -c1-100)
  echo "   → $FIRST_MSG..."
  
  # Show matching snippet
  SNIPPET=$(rg -o "[^\"]{0,50}($TERM1|$TERM2)[^\"]{0,50}" "$f" 2>/dev/null | head -1)
  echo "   ✓ $SNIPPET"
  echo ""
done

echo "Resume with: pi --session <path>"

JQ Helpers

Extract User Messages Only

cat session.jsonl | jq -r 'select(.type == "message") | select(.message.role == "user") | .message.content[0].text' 2>/dev/null

Get Session Summary

cat session.jsonl | jq -r '
  if .type == "session" then "📅 \(.timestamp) | \(.cwd)"
  elif .type == "message" and .message.role == "user" then "👤 \(.message.content[0].text[0:80])..."
  else empty end
' 2>/dev/null | head -10

Count Messages

cat session.jsonl | jq -s '[.[] | select(.type == "message")] | length'

Pro Tips

1. Start broad, narrow down - Begin with one keyword, add more to filter
2. Check project folders - Sessions are organized by working directory
3. Use filename dates - Filenames contain ISO timestamps
4. Search user messages - Filter on "role":"user" for your original questions
5. Combine with grep - rg is faster, but grep -A5 shows context

Common Searches

Troubleshooting

No results?

• Check spelling
• Try partial match (fewer characters)
• Use case-insensitive: rg -li "term"

Too many results?

• Add more search terms (AND search)
• Filter by date
• Filter by project directory

Slow search?

• Limit to specific project folder
• Use --max-count 1 to stop after first match per file