productiveio/tb-session

tb-session

Claude Code session search CLI. Full-text search across session history with metadata filtering. Built for AI agent consumption but works for humans too.

Capabilities

• Search — full-text search across messages with BM25 ranking, --pr filter, metadata filters
• List — browse sessions by metadata (branch, date, project), worktree-aware
• Show — session detail with conversation preview
• Resume — resume a past session in a new terminal tab (accepts UUIDs, prefixes, or name search)

When to use

• User references prior work: "remember when we...", "that session where..."
• User asks about a specific PR: use --pr to find sessions mentioning it
• User asks to find or resume a past session
• Before starting work: check if a prior session already started the same task
• Use --json for programmatic access when processing results

Quick reference

# Search by content
tb-session search "authentication middleware"
tb-session search "budget calculation" --all-projects

# Search by PR (number or URL)
tb-session search --pr 557
tb-session search --pr https://github.com/org/repo/pull/123

# List recent sessions
tb-session list
tb-session list --all-projects --limit 20

# Show session details (prefix match works)
tb-session show bcb7ff

# Resume by UUID prefix or name
tb-session resume bcb7ffed
tb-session resume "auth refactor"

Important

• Resume opens a new terminal tab — Claude sessions can't nest inside each other. When called from within Claude Code (non-TTY), resume opens a new iTerm/Terminal.app tab, cd's into the original project, and runs claude --resume. This is expected — not an error.
• Worktree-aware by default — list and search include sessions from all git worktrees of the same repo. Use --all-projects for everything.
• Resume accepts names — resume "auth refactor" searches summary/first prompt and resumes the most recent match. UUID prefixes of any length also work.
• URLs work as search queries — special characters are sanitized automatically.
• Resume vs. digest — resume loads the entire past conversation (useful when full context matters). show + a fresh session is often preferable when the user wants to continue work without the noise of prior turns. Pick based on user intent (see Workflow step 5).

Workflow

When handling a session-related request:

1. Always use --json on search and list commands — structured output is easier to parse and present accurately.
2. Pick the right command:
   • User describes content → tb-session search "<query>" --json
   • User mentions a PR → tb-session search --pr <N> --json
   • User asks "what have we been working on" → tb-session list --json
   • User wants to continue past work → see step 5 (two valid patterns)
3. Always present results with structured fields — for each session shown, include:
   • Session ID (prefix is fine)
   • Branch name
   • Summary or first prompt
   • Last-active timestamp
   • Even when matches are weak, show the top 1–2 results so the user can judge relevance.
4. After presenting results, offer a concrete next step:
   • tb-session show <id> to see conversation detail
   • tb-session resume <id> to continue the session in a new tab
5. When continuing past work, pick the pattern that matches the user's intent:
   • Explicit resume ("resume session X", "resume where we left off") → call tb-session resume <id>. This reopens the full conversation in a new tab.
   • Digest-and-continue ("what were we doing on X?", "let's continue on X", "pick up where we left off on X") → call tb-session show <id>, summarize the key context for the user, and continue in the current session. This avoids loading noise from the old conversation.
   • If unclear, briefly offer both options and let the user pick. Do not default silently to either — the choice affects the working context.
6. Stay efficient — aim for 1–3 tool calls. One search + one action is usually enough. Only retry with different keywords if the first search returned no relevant results.

Getting started

Run tb-session prime for available commands and index status.

Live context

!tb-session prime