recall

Recall past work on a specific project or topic.

Steps

1. Classify the question. Each shape has a cheapest path:

   • Needle — "what did we decide about X?" → search, then read just the matched exchange.
   • Arc — "where did we leave off on X?" → digest the relevant session(s).
   • Artifact — "what happened to this file?" → search with the files filter.

2. Find candidate sessions. Call search_sessions:

   • Needle/arc: query = topic keywords; add project if a path was given; limit: 10.
   • Artifact: files: [path or suffix], no query — results come back newest first.

   Each result carries messageHits — the specific messages that matched (index, role, snippet). The snippets alone often answer a needle question.

3. Digest the best 1-3 candidates. Call get_session_digest with each candidate's filePath. One bounded call (~2k tokens) returns the session's arc: every genuine user turn paired with its exchange's final assistant reply, each with a message index. For "where did we leave off", the last exchange of the newest session's digest usually is the answer.

4. Expand only what you need. To read around a specific point, call get_session_messages with offset = a messageHits[].index (from search) or exchanges[].index (from digest) and a small limit (5-10). Never page a transcript from offset 0 when a hit or digest index is available.

5. Summarize the history. Write a chronological summary:

   Sessions on {project/topic}

   For each relevant session:

   • {date} ({tool}) — What was worked on, key decisions made, outcome

   Overall arc: How the work evolved across sessions.

Guidelines

• Budget discipline: digests are bounded, transcripts are not. Prefer one digest over five pages of messages; expand at most the exchanges you need.
• If a digest returns empty exchanges (no genuine human turns), fall back to get_session_messages.
• Order chronologically (oldest first) to show the arc of work.
• For vague date-range asks ("what was I doing last week?"), use get_activity_digest with a date range instead of search.
• Focus on decisions and outcomes, not implementation details.
• If there are many sessions, group by phase or milestone rather than listing each one.