🔎 coding-agent-search (cass)

Unified, high-performance TUI to index and search your local coding agent history.
Aggregates sessions from Codex, Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Cline, OpenCode, Amp, Cursor, ChatGPT, Aider, Pi-Agent, GitHub Copilot Chat, Copilot CLI, OpenClaw, Clawdbot, Vibe, Crush, Hermes, Kimi Code, Qwen Code, and Factory (Droid) into a single, searchable timeline.

curl -fsSL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Dicklesworthstone/coding_agent_session_search/main/install.sh?$(date +%s)" \
  | bash -s -- --easy-mode --verify

# Windows (PowerShell)
& ([scriptblock]::Create((irm "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Dicklesworthstone/coding_agent_session_search/main/install.ps1"))) -EasyMode -Verify

# Homebrew (Apple Silicon macOS + Linux)
brew install dicklesworthstone/tap/cass

# Windows (Scoop)
scoop bucket add dicklesworthstone https://github.com/Dicklesworthstone/scoop-bucket
scoop install dicklesworthstone/cass

🤖 Agent Quickstart (Robot Mode)

⚠️ Never run bare cass in an agent context — it launches the interactive TUI. Always use --robot or --json.

# 1) One-shot agent triage. Follow next_command when present.
cass triage --json
#    From zero context, `cass --json` and `cass --robot` also resolve to triage.

# 2) Search across all agent history. Default search is hybrid-preferred:
#    lexical is the fast required path; semantic refinement joins when ready.
cass search "authentication error" --robot --limit 5 --fields minimal

# 3) Find the current or recent session for this workspace
cass sessions --current --json
cass sessions --workspace "$(pwd)" --json --limit 5

# 4) View + expand a hit (use source_path/line_number from search output)
cass view /path/to/session.jsonl -n 42 --json
cass expand /path/to/session.jsonl -n 42 -C 3 --json

# 5) Discover the full machine API
cass capabilities --json
cass robot-docs guide
cass robot-docs schemas

# 6) Exclude a noisy agent harness from future indexing
cass sources agents list --json
cass sources agents exclude openclaw
cass sources agents include openclaw

Output conventions

• stdout = data only
• stderr = diagnostics
• exit 0 = success

Search asset contract

• SQLite is the source of truth for indexed conversations and messages. All derived assets (lexical index, semantic vectors, analytics rollups, retention backups) can be rebuilt from SQLite; no derived asset is authoritative.
• Lexical search is the required fast path. Missing, stale, or incompatible lexical assets are treated as derived-state problems that cass should rebuild from SQLite instead of asking operators to perform routine manual repair.
• Hybrid is the default search intent. Robot metadata (--robot --robot-meta) reports the requested mode, realized mode, semantic refinement status, and any lexical fallback reason when semantic assets are not ready.
• Semantic assets are opportunistic background enrichment. Lexical-only results are expected during first indexing, semantic catch-up, disabled semantic policy, or unavailable local model/vector files.
• Semantic model acquisition is opt-in: cass models install downloads the requested embedder on explicit request; cass never auto-downloads. Three embedders are supported via --model <name>: all-minilm-l6-v2 (alias minilm, ~90 MB; the default), snowflake-arctic-s (~120 MB), and nomic-embed (~270 MB). Air-gapped installs use --from-file <dir>. While the chosen model is absent, search silently uses lexical-only and reports fallback_mode="lexical" in health/status.
• cass triage --json is the safest first command for agents: it combines readiness, next_command, recommended_commands[], docs/schema pointers, starter workflows, and accepted recoveries. cass health --json and cass status --json remain the narrower truth surfaces for readiness, active rebuilds, and recovery.

Lexical publish durability (atomic-swap)

• Every lexical publish is an atomic renameat2(RENAME_EXCHANGE) on Linux, or a parked-rename + restore-on-failure dance elsewhere. Readers never see a half-torn index — they see either the old or the new generation, never a mix. See src/indexer/mod.rs::publish_staged_lexical_index.
• The prior-live generation is retained under <data_dir>/index/.lexical-publish-backups/<dated>/ for a bounded retention window. Default cap is 1 (keep just the most-recent prior generation for one-step rollback); override via the CASS_LEXICAL_PUBLISH_BACKUP_RETENTION env var (0 disables retention entirely, higher N keeps deeper history). Pruning runs after every successful publish and emits structured tracing::info! events with freed_bytes + retention_limit for observability.
• Crash recovery is automatic: a crash between the atomic swap and the retain-rename is handled by recover_or_finalize_interrupted_lexical_publish_backup on the next startup, which moves any orphaned canonical sidecar (.<name>.publish-in-progress.bak) into .lexical-publish-backups/ before the next publish lands.

Quarantine, GC, and the doctor/diag surface

• Corrupt or failed-validation assets are quarantined rather than auto-deleted. cass diag --json --quarantine enumerates every quarantined artifact (failed seed bundles, retained publish backups, quarantined lexical generations) with size_bytes, age_seconds, safe_to_gc, and a human-readable gc_reason. The safe_to_gc flag is advisory — it reflects retention policy + cleanup dry-run eligibility and is not wired to any automatic deletion path.
• cass doctor --json surfaces the same quarantine summary plus checks[] status for every diagnostic the tool runs. Without --fix, doctor is read-only (auto_fix_applied=false, auto_fix_actions=[], issues_fixed=0); with --fix it applies only the repairs whose dry-run plans are proven safe (currently: Track A analytics rebuild, Track B rollup rebuild via rebuild_token_daily_stats when the token_usage ledger is intact).
• Lexical generation cleanup uses a dispositions + inspection-required-first policy. Operators running cass doctor --fix never have a generation reclaimed silently — every quarantine stays on disk until an explicit cass models backfill / cass index --full --force-rebuild replaces the source data.

Schema stability guarantees

• The JSON contract surfaces (triage, capabilities, health, status, diag, models status, models verify, models check-update, introspect, doctor, api-version, stats, sessions, search, pack) are pinned by golden-file regression tests under tests/golden/robot/. A change to any field name, type, or nullability fails the golden test suite and requires a deliberate regeneration pass (UPDATE_GOLDENS=1 rch exec -- env CARGO_TARGET_DIR=/tmp/cass-golden-target cargo test --test golden_robot_json --test golden_robot_docs).
• cass introspect --json's response_schemas block enumerates every schema in a stable alphabetical order (BTreeMap-backed — see bead coding_agent_session_search-8sl73).
• Error envelopes ({error: {code, kind, message, hint, retryable}}) have a fixed shape. kind values are kebab-case; branch on err.kind, not on the numeric code, for codes ≥ 10 (see the Error Handling section below).

📬 Agent Mail Fallback (When MCP Tools Are Not Exposed)

If your runtime does not expose built-in mcp-agent-mail tools (for example, list_mcp_resources is empty), you can still coordinate via direct MCP HTTP calls.

1) Start the local Agent Mail server

~/.local/pipx/venvs/mcp-agent-mail/bin/python -m mcp_agent_mail.cli serve-http --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8765

2) Use the Streamable HTTP MCP endpoint (/mcp)

curl -sS -X POST http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":"health","method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"health_check","arguments":{}}}'

3) Minimal coordination flow (project -> agent -> message -> inbox -> ack)

# Ensure project
curl -sS -X POST http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d \
'{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":"ensure","method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"ensure_project","arguments":{"human_key":"/data/projects/coding_agent_session_search"}}}'

# Register agent
curl -sS -X POST http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d \
'{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":"register","method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"register_agent","arguments":{"project_key":"/data/projects/coding_agent_session_search","program":"codex","model":"gpt-5","name":"YourAgentName"}}}'

# Send message
curl -sS -X POST http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d \
'{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":"send","method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"send_message","arguments":{"project_key":"/data/projects/coding_agent_session_search","sender_name":"YourAgentName","to":["PeerAgent"],"subject":"[coord] hello","thread_id":"coord-2026-02-13","ack_required":true,"body_md":"Online and starting work."}}}'

# Fetch inbox
curl -sS -X POST http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d \
'{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":"inbox","method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"fetch_inbox","arguments":{"project_key":"/data/projects/coding_agent_session_search","agent_name":"YourAgentName","limit":50,"include_bodies":true}}}'

# Acknowledge message id 42
curl -sS -X POST http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d \
'{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":"ack","method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"call_extended_tool","arguments":{"tool_name":"acknowledge_message","arguments":{"project_key":"/data/projects/coding_agent_session_search","agent_name":"YourAgentName","message_id":42}}}}'

Important caveat

mcp_agent_mail defaults to sqlite+aiosqlite:///./storage.sqlite3. That means the server working directory determines which mailbox database you are using. To avoid "project not found" confusion, start the server from the same directory your team expects for mailbox state.

📸 Screenshots

Search Results Across All Your Agents

Three-pane layout with semantic styling: filter bar with pills, results list with color-coded agents and score tiers, and syntax-highlighted detail preview with tab navigation

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Rich Conversation Detail View

Full conversation rendering with markdown formatting, code blocks, headers, and structured content

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Quick Start & Keyboard Reference

Built-in help screen (press F1 or ?) with all shortcuts, filters, modes, and navigation tips

💡 Why This Exists

The Problem

AI coding agents are transforming how we write software. Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Copilot, Aider, Pi-Agent; each creates a trail of conversations, debugging sessions, and problem-solving attempts. But this wealth of knowledge is scattered and unsearchable:

• Fragmented storage: Each agent stores data differently—JSONL files, SQLite databases, markdown logs, proprietary JSON formats
• No cross-agent visibility: Solutions discovered in Cursor are invisible when you're using Claude Code
• Lost context: That brilliant debugging session from two weeks ago? Good luck finding it by scrolling through files
• No semantic search by default: File-based grep doesn't understand natural language queries; cass can add optional local ML search when model files are installed

The Solution

cass treats your coding agent history as a unified knowledge base. It:

1. Normalizes disparate formats into a common schema
2. Indexes everything with a purpose-built full-text search engine
3. Surfaces relevant past conversations in milliseconds
4. Respects your privacy—everything stays local, nothing phones home

Who Benefits

• Individual developers: Find that solution you know you've seen before
• Teams: Share institutional knowledge across different tool preferences
• AI agents themselves: Let your current agent learn from all your past agents (via robot mode)
• Power users: Build workflows that leverage your complete coding history

✨ Key Features

⚡ Instant Search (Sub-60ms Latency)

• "Search-as-you-type": Results update instantly with every keystroke.
• Edge N-Gram Indexing: We frontload the work by pre-computing prefix matches (e.g., "cal" -> "calculate") during indexing, trading disk space for O(1) lookup speed at query time.
• Smart Tokenization: Handles snake_case ("my_var" matches "my" and "var"), hyphenated terms, and code symbols (c++, foo.bar) correctly.
• Zero-Stall Updates: The background indexer commits changes atomically; reader.reload() ensures new messages appear in the search bar immediately without restarting.

🧠 Optional Semantic Search (Local Inference, No Network at Query Time)

• Local inference: Uses a FastEmbed embedder running ONNX on-device. Once the chosen model is installed, no network traffic is required to answer queries.

• Opt-in acquisition: cass models install downloads the requested embedder from Hugging Face on explicit request and verifies SHA256 checksums. Nothing is fetched until you run the install command. Three embedders are supported:

  • all-minilm-l6-v2 — cass models install --model all-minilm-l6-v2 (alias: minilm). 384-dim. ~90 MB. The default; fastest. Best for general English semantic similarity.
  • snowflake-arctic-s — cass models install --model snowflake-arctic-s. 384-dim. ~120 MB. Stronger MTEB scores than MiniLM at similar cost; good drop-in replacement for code-heavy corpora.
  • nomic-embed — cass models install --model nomic-embed (alias: nomic-embed-text-v1.5). 768-dim. ~270 MB. Highest recall on long-context queries; trade off larger index footprint.

  Removal mirrors install: cass models remove --model <name> accepts the same alias set. The same alias map is honored by the daemon embedding worker (see src/daemon/worker.rs::resolve_embedder_kind) so background indexing accepts whatever the operator installed.

• Air-gapped install: cass models install --model <name> --from-file <dir> accepts a pre-downloaded model directory so you can bring the assets in yourself.

• Required files (all must be present after install; cass models verify checks them):

  • model.onnx
  • tokenizer.json
  • config.json
  • special_tokens_map.json
  • tokenizer_config.json

• Vector index: Stored as vector_index/index-<embedder>.fsvi in the data directory.

• Lexical fail-open: While the model is absent, cass returns lexical-only results and reports fallback_mode="lexical" in health/status; search never blocks on semantic assets.

Hash Embedder Fallback

When ML model files are not installed, cass uses a deterministic hash-based embedder as a fallback. While not "truly" semantic (it captures lexical overlap rather than meaning), it provides useful functionality:

Algorithm:

1. Tokenize: Lowercase, split on non-alphanumeric, filter tokens <2 characters
2. Hash: Apply FNV-1a to each token
3. Project: Use hash to determine dimension index and sign (+1 or -1) in a 384-dimensional vector
4. Normalize: L2 normalize to unit length for cosine similarity

When to Use:

• Quick setup without downloading model files
• Environments where ML inference overhead is unwanted
• Fallback when ML model fails to load

Override: Set CASS_SEMANTIC_EMBEDDER=hash to force hash mode even when ML model is available.

FSVI Vector Index Format

cass uses the frankensearch FSVI vector index format (.fsvi) for storing semantic embeddings.

Features:

• Memory-mappable: large indexes open without copying into RAM
• Quantization: supports f32 and f16 storage for smaller on-disk size
• Fast search: brute-force vector search and optional HNSW approximate search

Index Location: ~/.local/share/coding-agent-search/vector_index/index-<embedder>.fsvi

Search Modes

cass supports three search modes, selectable via --mode flag or Alt+S in the TUI:

Lexical Search: Uses Tantivy's BM25 implementation with edge n-grams for prefix matching. Best when you know the exact terms you're looking for. The lexical index is derived from SQLite; if it is missing, stale, or incompatible, cass reports the state and rebuilds through the normal indexing path from the canonical database.

Semantic Search: Computes vector similarity between query and indexed message embeddings. Finds conceptually related content even without exact term overlap. Requires either the ML model (MiniLM) or falls back to hash embedder.

Hybrid Search: The default. It combines lexical and semantic results using Reciprocal Rank Fusion (RRF) when semantic assets are ready, and it fails open to lexical when semantic enrichment is still catching up or disabled:

RRF_score = Σ 1 / (K + rank_i)

Where K=60 (tuning constant) and rank_i is the position in each result list. This balances the precision of lexical search with the recall of semantic search.

# CLI examples
cass search "authentication" --mode lexical --robot
cass search "how to handle user login" --mode semantic --robot
cass search "auth error handling" --mode hybrid --robot

🎯 Advanced Search Features

• Wildcard Patterns: Full glob-style pattern support:
  • foo* - Prefix match (finds "foobar", "foo123")
  • *foo - Suffix match (finds "barfoo", "configfoo")
  • *foo* - Substring match (finds "afoob", "configuration")
• Auto-Fuzzy Fallback: When exact searches return sparse results, automatically retries with *term* wildcards to broaden matches. Visual indicator shows when fallback is active.
• Query History Deduplication: Recent searches deduplicated to show unique queries; navigate with Up/Down arrows.
• Match Quality Ranking: New ranking mode (cycle with F12) that prioritizes exact matches over wildcard/fuzzy results.
• Match Highlighting: Use --highlight in robot mode to wrap matching terms with markers (**bold** for text, <mark> for HTML output).

🖥️ Rich Terminal UI (TUI)

Powered by FrankenTUI (ftui) — a high-performance Elm-architecture TUI framework with adaptive frame budgets, Bayesian diff selection, and spring-based animations.

• Three-Pane Layout: Filter bar (top), scrollable results (left), and syntax-highlighted details (right).
• Multi-Line Result Display: Each result shows location and up to 3 lines of context; alternating stripes improve scanability.
• Live Status: Footer shows real-time indexing progress—agent discovery count during scanning, then item progress with sparkline visualization (e.g., 📦 Indexing 150/2000 (7%) ▁▂▄▆█)—plus active filters.
• Multi-Open Queue: Queue multiple results with Ctrl+Enter, then open all in your editor with Ctrl+O. Confirmation prompt for large batches (≥12 items).
• Find-in-Detail: Press / to search within the detail pane; matches highlighted with n/N navigation.
• Mouse Support: Click to select results, scroll panes, or clear filters.
• Theming: Adaptive Dark/Light modes with role-colored messages (User/Assistant/System). Presets include dark, light, high-contrast, and accessible variants.
• Ranking Modes: Cycle through recent/balanced/relevance/quality with F12; quality mode penalizes fuzzy matches.
• Analytics Dashboard: 7 views (Dashboard, Explorer, Heatmap, Breakdowns, Tools, Plans, Coverage) with interactive charts, KPI tiles, and drill-down filtering. Toggle with A.
• Inline Mode: Run cass tui --inline to keep terminal scrollback intact. The UI anchors to a region of the terminal while logs scroll normally. Configure with --ui-height <rows> and --anchor top|bottom.
• Macro Recording: Capture input sessions with cass tui --record-macro session.macro for reproducible bug reports and workflow automation. Events are saved as human-readable JSONL with full timing data.
• Asciicast Recording: Capture reproducible TUI demos and bug repro artifacts with cass tui --asciicast demo.cast.
  • Security default: recording captures terminal output only (input keystrokes are not serialized by default).

📄 HTML Session Export

Export conversations as styled, portable HTML files with optional encryption:

• Mostly Self-Contained: Critical structural CSS and the export payload are inlined directly; the file opens without a local web server. Tailwind's utility CSS runtime (@tailwindcss/browser) and Prism.js syntax-highlighting assets are loaded from cdn.jsdelivr.net for full fidelity.
• Progressive Enhancement / Graceful Degradation: Prism.js resources fall back via onerror="...no-prism" — code blocks remain readable offline in plain monospace. Tailwind CDN does not currently have a built-in fallback: layout utilities require network on first open (the page is still legible but unstyled). Air-gapped archival users should note this limitation.
• Password Protection: AES-256-GCM encryption with PBKDF2 key derivation (600,000 iterations)—opens directly in any browser
• Rich Styling: Dark/light themes, syntax-highlighted code blocks, collapsible tool calls
• Print-Friendly: Optimized print styles with page breaks and footers
• Searchable: Built-in search functionality within the exported document

TUI Usage: Press e in the detail view to open the export modal, or Ctrl+E for quick export with defaults.

CLI Usage:

# Basic export
cass export-html /path/to/session.jsonl

# With encryption
printf '%s\n' "secret" | cass export-html /path/to/session.jsonl --encrypt --password-stdin

# Custom output location
cass export-html session.jsonl --output-dir ~/exports --filename "my-session"

# Open in browser after export
cass export-html session.jsonl --open

# Robot mode (JSON output)
cass export-html session.jsonl --json

🔗 Universal Connectors

Ingests history from 20 local agents, normalizing them into a unified Conversation -> Message -> Snippet model:

• Codex: ~/.codex/sessions (Rollout JSONL)
• Cline: VS Code global storage (Task directories)
• Gemini CLI: ~/.gemini/tmp (Chat JSON)
• Claude Code: ~/.claude/projects (Session JSONL)
• Clawdbot: ~/.clawdbot/sessions (Session JSONL)
• Vibe (Mistral): ~/.vibe/logs/session/*/messages.jsonl (Session JSONL)
• OpenCode: .opencode directories (SQLite)
• Amp: ~/.local/share/amp & VS Code storage
• Cursor: ~/Library/Application Support/Cursor/User/ global + workspace storage (SQLite state.vscdb)
• ChatGPT: ~/Library/Application Support/com.openai.chat (v1 unencrypted JSON; v2/v3 encrypted—see Environment)
• Aider: ~/.aider.chat.history.md and per-project .aider.chat.history.md files (Markdown)
• Pi-Agent: ~/.pi/agent/sessions (Session JSONL with thinking content)
• GitHub Copilot Chat: VS Code global storage under github.copilot-chat (JSON)
• Copilot CLI: ~/.copilot/session-state, legacy ~/.copilot/history-session-state, and gh copilot config paths (JSONL/JSON)
• OpenClaw: ~/.openclaw/agents/*/sessions (Session JSONL)
• Crush: ~/.crush/crush.db and per-project .crush/crush.db (SQLite)
• Hermes: ~/.hermes/state.db and project-local .hermes/state.db (SQLite)
• Kimi Code: ~/.kimi/sessions/*/*/wire.jsonl (Session JSONL)
• Qwen Code: ~/.qwen/tmp/*/chats/session-*.json (Chat JSON)
• Factory (Droid): ~/.factory/sessions (JSONL files organized by workspace slug)

Connector Details

Pi-Agent parses JSONL session files with rich event structure:

• Location: ~/.pi/agent/sessions/ (override with PI_CODING_AGENT_DIR env var)
• Format: Typed events—session_start, message, model_change, thinking_level_change
• Features: Extracts extended thinking content, flattens tool calls with arguments, tracks model changes
• Detection: Scans for *_*.jsonl pattern in sessions directory

OpenCode reads SQLite databases from workspace directories:

• Location: .opencode/ directories (scans recursively from home)
• Format: SQLite database with sessions table
• Detection: Finds directories named .opencode containing database files

🌐 Remote Sources (Multi-Machine Search)

Search across agent sessions from multiple machines—your laptop, desktop, and remote servers—all from a single unified index. cass uses SSH/rsync to efficiently sync session data, tracking provenance so you know where each conversation originated.

Interactive Setup Wizard (Recommended)

The easiest way to configure multi-machine search is the interactive setup wizard:

cass sources setup

What the wizard does:

1. Discovers SSH hosts from your ~/.ssh/config
2. Probes each host to check for:
   • Existing cass installation (and version)
   • Agent session data (Claude, Codex, Cursor, Gemini, etc.)
   • System resources (disk space, memory)
3. Lets you select which hosts to configure
4. Installs cass on remotes that don't have it (optional)
5. Indexes existing sessions on remotes (optional)
6. Configures sources.toml with correct paths and mappings
7. Syncs data to your local machine (optional)

Wizard options:

Examples:

# Full interactive wizard
cass sources setup

# Configure specific hosts only
cass sources setup --hosts css,csd,yto

# Preview without making changes
cass sources setup --dry-run

# Resume interrupted setup
cass sources setup --resume

# Non-interactive for CI/CD
cass sources setup --non-interactive --hosts myserver --skip-install

Resumable state: If setup is interrupted (Ctrl+C, connection lost), state is saved to the cache directory (~/.cache/cass/setup_state.json on Linux). Resume with --resume.

Remote Installation Methods

When the wizard installs cass on remote machines, it uses an intelligent fallback chain:

Resource Requirements:

• Minimum 1GB disk space for installation
• Recommended 2GB RAM for compilation
• Linux pre-built binaries require glibc 2.38+ on conventional FHS-style distributions; older glibc, musl-only, and NixOS hosts fall back to source installation when possible.
• SSH access with key-based authentication

What Gets Installed:

• The cass binary (location depends on method: ~/.cargo/bin/cass for cargo-based, ~/.local/bin/cass for pre-built binary)
• No daemon, no background services—just the binary

Installation Progress: The wizard shows real-time progress for each stage:

Installing cass on laptop...
  [1/4] Checking environment...     ✓
  [2/4] Downloading binary...       ████████░░ 80%
  [3/4] Verifying checksum...       ✓
  [4/4] Setting up PATH...          ✓

Use --skip-install if you prefer to install manually on remotes.

Host Discovery & Probing

The setup wizard automatically discovers SSH hosts from your configuration:

Discovery Sources:

• ~/.ssh/config (parses Host entries)
• Hosts with wildcards (*, ?) are automatically excluded

Probe Results (for each discovered host):

Probe Caching: Results are cached for 5 minutes to speed up repeated setup attempts. Cache clears automatically on expiry.

Manual Setup

For manual configuration without the wizard:

# Add a remote machine using platform presets
cass sources add [email protected] --preset macos-defaults

# Or specify paths explicitly
cass sources add dev@workstation --path ~/.claude/projects --path ~/.codex/sessions

# Sync sessions from all configured sources
cass sources sync

# Check source health and connectivity
cass sources doctor

Remote Archive Safety

Remote source diagnostics are intentionally local-only. cass triage --json,
cass doctor --json, cass health --json, and cass status --json report the
remote_source_sync summary from cass-owned evidence: sources.toml,
sync_status.json, the local remotes/<source>/mirror/ copy, and archive DB
provenance rows. They do not open SSH sessions, mutate remote machines, or
rewrite provider session logs while classifying source gaps.

This matters because agent harnesses can prune their own logs. If a laptop is
retired, a remote path disappears, or a provider truncates older sessions, the
cass archive DB and cass-owned local mirror may be the only remaining evidence
for those conversations. Treat gap names such as remote_source_unavailable,
remote_source_pruned, local_archive_ahead_of_remote, and
remote_copy_ahead_verified as preservation signals first: keep the archive and
mirror intact, then run the recommended cass sources sync --all --json or
source-specific sync command after reviewing the reported evidence.

Raw-mirror retention is explicit and audited. Use cass mirror prune --older-than 90d --json or cass mirror prune --max-size 100GB --json to get a
dry-run plan; add --apply only after reviewing the manifest/blob list. Add
--keep-tag <tag> to pin captures linked to tagged conversations. prune
holds down blobs referenced by captures from the last 7 days by default, writes
raw-mirror/v1/pruned.jsonl for every non-empty plan, and refuses apply mode
while an index/watch job is active.

Configuration File

Sources are configured in the platform config directory (Linux: ~/.config/cass/sources.toml, macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/cass/sources.toml):

[[sources]]
name = "laptop"
type = "ssh"
host = "[email protected]"
paths = ["~/.claude/projects", "~/.codex/sessions"]
sync_schedule = "manual"

[[sources]]
name = "workstation"
type = "ssh"
host = "[email protected]"
paths = ["~/.claude/projects"]
sync_schedule = "daily"

# Path mappings rewrite remote paths to local equivalents
[[sources.path_mappings]]
from = "/home/dev/projects"
to = "/Users/me/projects"

# Agent-specific mappings
[[sources.path_mappings]]
from = "/opt/work"
to = "/Volumes/Work"
agents = ["claude_code"]

Configuration Fields:

CLI Commands

# List configured sources
cass sources list [--verbose] [--json]

# Add a new source
cass sources add <user@host> [--name <name>] [--preset macos-defaults|linux-defaults] [--path <path>...] [--no-test]

# Remove a source
cass sources remove <name> [--purge] [-y]

# Check connectivity and config
cass sources doctor [--source <name>] [--json]

# Sync sessions
cass sources sync [--source <name>] [--no-index] [--verbose] [--dry-run] [--json]

Excluding Noisy Agent Harnesses

If one harness is generating mostly junk or looped output, you can disable it persistently even if its files remain on disk:

# Inspect current include/exclude state
cass sources agents list --json

# Stop indexing this harness in future runs
cass sources agents exclude openclaw

# Re-enable it later
cass sources agents include openclaw

cass stores this preference in sources.toml (~/.config/cass/sources.toml on Linux, ~/Library/Application Support/cass/sources.toml on macOS), so future scans, syncs, and watch-mode updates remember it automatically.

By default, cass sources agents exclude <agent> also removes already archived local data for that agent and rebuilds the lexical index so the exclusion frees space instead of only blocking future imports.

If you want to block future indexing but keep the data already archived:

cass sources agents exclude openclaw --keep-indexed-data

Sync Engine Internals

The sync engine uses rsync over SSH for efficient delta transfers, with automatic SFTP fallback:

Transfer Methods (auto-detected):

Safety Guarantees:

• Additive-only syncs: rsync runs WITHOUT --delete flag—remote deletions never propagate locally
• No overwrite risk: Existing local files are only updated if remote is newer
• Atomic operations: Failed transfers don't leave partial files

Transfer Configuration:

rsync Flags Used:

-avz --stats --partial --protect-args --timeout=300 \
  -e "ssh -o BatchMode=yes -o ConnectTimeout=10 -o StrictHostKeyChecking=accept-new"

Where -avz = archive mode + verbose + compression.

Data Flow:

Remote: ~/.claude/projects/
    ↓ (rsync over SSH)
Local: ~/.local/share/coding-agent-search/remotes/<source>/<path>/
    ↓ (connector scan)
Index: agent_search.db + tantivy_index/

Where <path> is a filesystem-safe version of the remote path (e.g., .claude_projects).

Sessions from remotes are indexed alongside local sessions, with provenance tracking to identify origin.

Path Mappings

When viewing sessions from remote machines, workspace paths may not exist locally. Path mappings rewrite these paths so file links work on your local machine:

# List current mappings
cass sources mappings list laptop

# Add a mapping
cass sources mappings add laptop --from /home/user/projects --to /Users/me/projects

# Test how a path would be rewritten
cass sources mappings test laptop /home/user/projects/myapp/src/main.rs
# Output: /Users/me/projects/myapp/src/main.rs

# Agent-specific mappings (only apply for certain agents)
cass sources mappings add laptop --from /opt/work --to /Volumes/Work --agents claude_code,codex

# Remove a mapping by index
cass sources mappings remove laptop 0

TUI Source Filtering

In the TUI, filter sessions by origin:

• F11: Cycle source filter (all → local → remote → all)
• Shift+F11: Open source filter menu to select specific sources

Remote sessions display with a source indicator (e.g., [laptop]) in the results list.

Provenance Tracking

Each conversation tracks its origin:

• source_id: Machine identifier (e.g., "laptop", "workstation")
• source_kind: local or remote
• workspace_original: Original path on the remote machine (before path mapping)

These fields appear in JSON/robot output and enable filtering:

cass search "auth error" --source laptop --json
cass timeline --days 7 --source remote
cass stats --by-source

🤖 AI / Automation Mode

cass is purpose-built for consumption by AI coding agents—not just as an afterthought, but as a first-class design goal. When you're an AI agent working on a codebase, your own session history and those of other agents become an invaluable knowledge base: solutions to similar problems, context about design decisions, debugging approaches that worked, and institutional memory that would otherwise be lost.

Why Cross-Agent Search Matters

Imagine you're Claude Code working on a React authentication bug. With cass, you can instantly search across:

• Your own previous sessions where you solved similar auth issues
• Codex sessions where someone debugged OAuth flows
• Cursor conversations about token refresh patterns
• Aider chats about security best practices

This cross-pollination of knowledge across different AI agents is transformative. Each agent has different strengths, different context windows, and encounters different problems. cass unifies all this collective intelligence into a single, searchable index.

Self-Documenting API

cass teaches agents how to use it—no external documentation required:

# First-stop capability contract for agents
cass triage --json
cass capabilities --json
# → {"version": "...", "workflows": [...], "mistake_recoveries": [...], "commands": [...], "exit_codes": [...], "env_vars": [...]}

# Full API schema with argument types, defaults, and response shapes
cass introspect --json

# Topic-based help optimized for LLM consumption
cass robot-docs commands # All commands and flags
cass robot-docs schemas # Response JSON schemas
cass robot-docs examples # Copy-paste invocations
cass robot-docs exit-codes # Error handling guide
cass robot-docs guide # Quick-start walkthrough

Forgiving Syntax (Agent-Friendly Parsing)

AI agents sometimes make syntax mistakes. cass aggressively normalizes input to maximize acceptance when intent is clear:

The CLI applies multiple normalization layers:

1. Flag typo correction: Long flag names within Levenshtein distance 2 are auto-corrected (e.g. --limt → --limit). Subcommand typos are NOT fuzzy-corrected — use one of the documented aliases instead (see layer 5 below). A typo that isn't a known alias will produce a clap usage error with the canonical form in the hint.
2. Case normalization: --Robot, --LIMIT → --robot, --limit
3. Snake-case flag recovery: --max_results, --data_dir, and other known snake_case long flags become canonical kebab-case before alias recovery runs
4. Single-dash recovery: -robot → --robot (common LLM mistake)
5. Subcommand aliases: ready/preflight → triage; find/query/q/grep/lookup → search; answer/evidence/bundle/handoff/why/explain/rca/root-cause/summarize → pack; html-export/html_export/exporthtml → export-html; ls/list/info/summary → stats; st/state → status; reindex/idx/rebuild → index; show/get/read → view; docs/help-robot/robotdocs → robot-docs
6. Robot-docs topic shorthands: non-command topics such as commands, schemas, examples, exit-codes, and guide become robot-docs <topic> instead of falling through to search; command topics such as doctor and sources use structured help (cass help doctor --json, cass sources --help --json)
7. Root robot default: cass --json, cass --robot, or cass --robot-format json with no subcommand runs read-only triage
8. Leading structured flag recovery: --json/--robot before a robot-capable subcommand is moved onto that subcommand
9. Named positional recovery: --query/--q/--text/--pattern for search/pack and --path/--source-path/--file/--session for drill-down/export commands become the required positional argument
10. Multi-word query recovery: adjacent unquoted query words after search/pack become one query positional
11. Structured format recovery: --format json|jsonl|compact|sessions|toon, --output json|jsonl|compact|sessions|toon, and --output-format ... are accepted as --robot-format ... on robot-capable commands; export --format ... and export --output <file> keep their export meanings
12. Structured help recovery: help --json, help commands --json, and search --help --json route to robot-docs guide / robot-docs commands; plain --help stays native clap help
13. Result-count aliases: --max-results, --num-results, --results, --count, --top-k, and -n become --limit on commands with result limits
14. Time-window aliases: --last 7, --before now, last=7d, and before=now become canonical --since/--until filters
15. Provider aliases: --provider, --tool, --connector, and matching assignments become canonical --agent filters on search-like commands
16. Bare option pairs: after at least one search/pack query word, provider codex, limit 5, and last 7d become canonical filter flags before the remaining words are folded into the query
17. Pack-intent recovery: a bare robot query or explicit structured-output search with pack-only flags such as --max-evidence, --max-sessions, or --freshness-policy becomes pack, not implicit or explicit search
18. Search-result field aliases: --line-number, --line_number, and line_number=42 become the canonical drill-down --line option
19. Search-hit bundle recovery: source_path=... source_id=... line_number=... can be pasted into follow-up view/expand commands and becomes the canonical path/source/line form
20. Leading-filter query recovery: if a search/pack query comes after leading options, the query is moved back to the required positional slot
21. Implicit robot search: unquoted top-level words with an explicit robot/JSON output request become a search query unless they look like a subcommand typo
22. Current-session shorthand: current, current-session, and sessions current become sessions --current
23. Global flag hoisting: Position-independent flag handling

When corrections are applied, cass emits a teaching note to stderr so agents learn the canonical syntax.

Structured Output Formats

Every command supports machine-readable output:

# Pretty-printed JSON (default robot mode)
cass search "error" --robot

# Streaming JSONL: one hit per line. Add --robot-meta to prepend a
# _meta header line (elapsed_ms, next_cursor, state, index_freshness).
cass search "error" --robot-format jsonl               # hits only
cass search "error" --robot-format jsonl --robot-meta  # 1 _meta header + hits

# Compact single-line JSON (minimal bytes)
cass search "error" --robot-format compact

# Include performance metadata
cass search "error" --robot --robot-meta
# → { "hits": [...], "_meta": { "elapsed_ms": 12, "cache_hit": true, "wildcard_fallback": false, ... } }

# Deterministic answer pack for handoff prompts
cass pack "why did checkout fail" --robot --max-tokens 12000 --limit 40

# Freshness-sensitive pack: fail if selected evidence is outside the window
cass pack "checkout timeout after redirect" --robot \
  --freshness-policy strict --freshness-window-seconds 604800 \
  --max-tokens 12000 --require-evidence

# Token-budgeted pack for pasting into another agent
cass pack "checkout timeout after redirect" --robot \
  --max-tokens 4000 --max-evidence 8 --max-sessions 3 --max-excerpt-chars 600

# Pipeline from broad search to a bounded cited handoff
cass search "checkout timeout" --robot-format sessions \
  | cass pack "checkout timeout root cause" --robot --sessions-from -

Design principle: stdout contains only parseable JSON data; all diagnostics, warnings, and progress go to stderr.

Use search when you are still exploring candidate sessions. Use pack when
you need a compact, cited, extractive artifact to hand to another agent or a
human operator. Use status/health before trusting freshness-sensitive output,
and use doctor only for diagnostics or safe repair workflows. Use
export-html when you need a full browsable session archive; packs are
token-budgeted evidence bundles, not full exports and not external
summarization.

Pack robot output includes health, freshness, privacy, and warnings.
Warnings such as privacy_redactions_applied, semantic_fallback_lexical,
or no_evidence_found are data, not prose; branch on the JSON fields before
copying the pack into another tool. Stale selected evidence is structural:
inspect freshness.stale_evidence_count.

Token Budget Management

LLMs have context limits. cass provides multiple levers to control output size:

Truncated fields include a *_truncated: true indicator so agents know when they're seeing partial content.

Contributor verification for docs or contract changes should use rch, for example:

rch exec -- env CARGO_TARGET_DIR=${TMPDIR:-/tmp}/rch_target_cass_answer_pack_docs \
  cargo test --test golden_robot_docs

Error Handling for Agents

Errors are structured, actionable, and include recovery hints. A real sample from cass search foo --robot against a fresh data dir:

{
  "error": {
    "code": 3,
    "kind": "missing-index",
    "message": "cass has not been initialized in <data_dir> yet, so search cannot run until the first index completes.",
    "hint": "Run 'cass index --full' once to discover local sessions and build the initial archive.",
    "retryable": true
  }
}

Kind names are kebab-case (e.g. missing-index, missing-db, semantic-unavailable, embedder-unavailable, ambiguous-source, timeout, config, lock-busy, network). Agents that branch on err.kind should treat them as stable identifiers. The full set (~50 kinds as of 0.3.x) is defined in src/lib.rs; the canonical way to discover a kind programmatically is to trigger the condition and inspect err.kind from the JSON envelope.

Exit codes follow a semantic convention:

Codes ≥ 10 are domain-specific and the numeric value alone is ambiguous (e.g. code 10 maps to either config or timeout kinds depending on context). Agents should branch on err.kind from the JSON error envelope — not on the numeric code — when handling codes ≥ 10. See the Error Handling section above for the canonical kind list.

The retryable field tells agents whether a retry might succeed (e.g., transient I/O) vs. guaranteed failure (e.g., invalid path).

Session Analysis Commands

Beyond search, cass provides commands for deep-diving into specific sessions:

# Discover the current session for this workspace
cass sessions --current --json

# List recent sessions for a specific project
cass sessions --workspace /path/to/project --json --limit 5

# Export full conversation to shareable format
cass export /path/to/session.jsonl --format markdown -o conversation.md
cass export /path/to/session.jsonl --format json --include-tools

# Export as self-contained HTML with encryption (recommended for sharing)
cass export-html /path/to/session.jsonl                     # To Downloads folder
printf '%s\n' "pwd" | cass export-html session.jsonl --encrypt --password-stdin
cass export-html session.jsonl --open --json                # Open in browser, JSON output

# Common agent flow: find current session, then export it
cass export-html "$(cass sessions --current --json | jq -r '.sessions[0].path')" --json

# Expand context around a specific line (from search result)
cass expand /path/to/session.jsonl -n 42 -C 5 --json
# → Shows 5 messages before and after line 42

# Activity timeline: when were agents active?
cass timeline --today --json --group-by hour
cass timeline --since 7d --agent claude --json
# → Grouped activity counts, useful for understanding work patterns

Aggregation & Analytics

Aggregate search results server-side to get counts and distributions without transferring full result data:

# Count results by agent
cass search "error" --robot --aggregate agent
# → { "aggregations": { "agent": { "buckets": [{"key": "claude_code", "count": 45}, ...] } } }

# Multi-field aggregation
cass search "bug" --robot --aggregate agent,workspace,date

# Combine with filters
cass search "TODO" --agent claude --robot --aggregate workspace

Aggregation Fields:

Response Format:

{
  "aggregations": {
    "agent": {
      "buckets": [
        {"key": "claude_code", "count": 120},
        {"key": "codex", "count": 85}
      ],
      "other_count": 15
    }
  }
}

Top 10 buckets are returned per field, with other_count for remaining items.

Chained Search (Pipeline Mode)

Chain multiple searches together by piping session paths from one search to another:

# Find sessions mentioning "auth", then search within those for "token"
cass search "authentication" --robot-format sessions | \
  cass search "refresh token" --sessions-from - --robot

# Build a filtered corpus from today's work
cass search --today --robot-format sessions > today_sessions.txt
cass search "bug fix" --sessions-from today_sessions.txt --robot

How It Works:

1. First search with --robot-format sessions outputs one session path per line
2. Second search with --sessions-from <file> restricts search to those sessions
3. Use - to read from stdin for true piping

Use Cases:

• Drill-down: Broad search → narrow within results
• Cross-reference: Find sessions with term A, then find term B within them
• Corpus building: Save session lists for repeated searches

Match Highlighting

The --highlight flag wraps matching terms for visual/programmatic identification:

cass search "authentication error" --robot --highlight
# In text output: **authentication** and **error** are bold-wrapped
# In HTML export: <mark>authentication</mark> and <mark>error</mark>

Highlighting is query-aware: quoted phrases like "auth error" highlight as a unit; individual terms highlight separately.

Pagination & Cursors

For large result sets, use cursor-based pagination:

# First page
cass search "TODO" --robot --robot-meta --limit 20
# → { "hits": [...], "_meta": { "next_cursor": "eyJ..." } }

# Next page
cass search "TODO" --robot --robot-meta --limit 20 --cursor "eyJ..."

Cursors are opaque tokens encoding the pagination state. They remain valid as long as the index isn't rebuilt.

Request Correlation

For debugging and logging, attach a request ID:

cass search "bug" --robot --request-id "req-12345"
# → { "hits": [...], "_meta": { "request_id": "req-12345" } }

Idempotent Operations

For safe retries (e.g., in CI pipelines or flaky networks):

cass index --full --idempotency-key "build-$(date +%Y%m%d)"
# If same key + params were used in last 24h, returns cached result

Query Analysis

Debug why a search returned unexpected results:

cass search "auth*" --robot --explain
# → Includes parsed query AST, term expansion, cost estimates

cass search "auth error" --robot --dry-run
# → Validates query syntax without executing

Traceability

For debugging agent pipelines:

cass search "error" --robot --trace-file /tmp/cass-trace.json
# Appends execution span with timing, exit code, and command details

cass index --full --json --robot-trace-ingest 2>/tmp/cass-ingest-trace.jsonl
# Streams one NDJSON record per ingest batch with wall_ms, batch_msgs,
# inserted_messages, and duplicate-lookup counters for perf bisects

Search Flags Reference

Index Flags Reference

Robot Documentation System

For machine-readable documentation, use cass robot-docs <topic>:

# Get documentation programmatically
cass robot-docs guide
cass robot-docs schemas
cass robot-docs exit-codes

# Machine-first help (wide output, no TUI assumptions)
cass --robot-help

API Contract & Versioning

cass maintains a stable API contract for automation:

cass api-version --json
# → { "version": "0.4.0", "contract_version": "1", "breaking_changes": [] }

cass introspect --json
# → Full schema: all commands, arguments, response types

Contract Version: Currently 1. Increments only on breaking changes.

Guaranteed Stable:

• Exit codes and their meanings
• JSON response structure for --robot output
• Flag names and behaviors
• _meta block format

Ready-to-paste blurb for AGENTS.md / CLAUDE.md

🔎 cass — Search All Your Agent History

 What: cass indexes conversations from Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini, Aider, ChatGPT, and more into a unified, searchable index. Before solving a problem from scratch, check if any agent already solved something similar.

 ⚠️ NEVER run bare cass — it launches an interactive TUI. Always use --robot or --json.

 Quick Start

 # One-shot agent triage (read next_command when present)
 cass triage --json

 # Search across all agent histories
 cass search "authentication error" --robot --limit 5

 # Build a cited handoff pack from search evidence
 cass pack "authentication error root cause" --robot --max-tokens 12000 --limit 40

 # Tight handoff budget with freshness and privacy metadata
 cass pack "authentication error root cause" --robot --max-tokens 4000 --max-evidence 8 --fields summary

 # View a specific result (from search output)
 cass view /path/to/session.jsonl -n 42 --json

 # Expand context around a line
 cass expand /path/to/session.jsonl -n 42 -C 3 --json

 # Learn the full API
 cass capabilities --json # Static agent self-description
 cass robot-docs guide # LLM-optimized docs

 Why Use It

 - Cross-agent knowledge: Find solutions from Codex when using Claude, or vice versa
 - Forgiving syntax: Typos and wrong flags are auto-corrected with teaching notes
 - Token-efficient: --fields minimal returns only essential data; pack budgets cite only selected evidence
 - Copy-safe handoffs: pack warnings include freshness and privacy/redaction status

 Key Flags

 | Flag | Purpose |
 |------------------|--------------------------------------------------------|
 | --robot / --json | Machine-readable JSON output (required!) |
 | --fields minimal | Reduce payload: source_path, line_number, agent only |
 | pack --max-tokens N | Budget a cited handoff pack |
 | --limit N | Cap result count |
 | --agent NAME | Filter to specific agent (claude, codex, cursor, etc.) |
 | --days N | Limit to recent N days |

 stdout = data only, stderr = diagnostics. Exit 0 = success.

🔤 Query Language Reference

cass supports a rich query syntax designed for both humans and machines.

Basic Queries

Boolean Operators

Combine terms with explicit operators for complex queries:

Operator Precedence: NOT binds tightest, then AND, then OR. Use parentheses (in robot mode) for explicit grouping.

# Complex boolean query
cass search "authentication AND (error OR failure) NOT test" --robot

# Exclude test files
cass search "bug fix -test -spec" --robot

# Either error type
cass search "TypeError OR ValueError" --robot

Phrase Queries

Wrap terms in double quotes for exact phrase matching:

Phrases respect word order and proximity. Useful for error messages, code patterns, and specific terminology.

Wildcard Patterns

Tip: Prefix wildcards (foo*) are optimized via pre-computed edge n-grams. Suffix and substring wildcards fall back to regex and are slower on large indexes.

Query Modifiers

# Field-specific search (in robot mode)
cass search "error" --agent claude --workspace /path/to/project

# Time-bounded search
cass search "bug" --since 2024-01-01 --until 2024-01-31
cass search "bug" --today
cass search "bug" --days 7

# Combined filters
cass search "authentication" --agent codex --workspace myproject --week

Flexible Time Input

cass accepts a wide variety of time/date formats for filtering:

Intelligent Heuristics:

• Numbers >10 digits are treated as milliseconds, otherwise seconds
• Two-digit years are expanded (24 → 2024)
• Date-only inputs default to midnight start or 23:59:59 end

# All equivalent for "last week"
cass search "bug" --since -7d
cass search "bug" --since "-1w"
cass search "bug" --days 7

# Date range
cass search "feature" --since 2024-01-01 --until 2024-01-31

# Mix formats
cass search "error" --since yesterday --until now

Match Types

Search results include a match_type indicator:

Auto-Fuzzy Fallback

When an exact query returns fewer than 3 results, cass automatically retries with wildcard expansion:

• auth → *auth*
• Results are flagged with wildcard_fallback: true in robot mode
• TUI shows a "fuzzy" indicator in the status bar

⌨️ Complete Keyboard Reference

Global Keys

Search Bar (Query Input)

Navigation

Filtering

Modes & Display

Selection & Actions

Detail Pane

Detail Tabs

The detail pane has three tabs, switchable with [ and ]:

Context Window Sizing

Control how much content shows in the detail preview. Cycle with F7:

Peek Mode (Ctrl+Space): Temporarily expand to XL context. Press again to restore previous size. Useful for quick deep-dives without changing your preferred default.

Mouse Support

• Click on result to select
• Click on filter chip to edit/remove
• Scroll in any pane
• Double-click to open result

Bulk Operations

Efficiently work with multiple search results at once:

Multi-Select Mode:

1. Press Ctrl+M (or Ctrl+X) to toggle selection on current result (checkbox appears)
2. Navigate to other results and press Ctrl+M or Ctrl+X again
3. Press Ctrl+A to select/deselect all visible results
4. Selected count shown in footer: "3 selected"

Bulk Actions Menu (A when items selected):

Multi-Open Queue:
For opening many files without navigating away:

1. Press Ctrl+Enter to add current result to queue
2. Continue searching and adding more results
3. Press Ctrl+O to open all queued items
4. Confirmation prompt appears for 12+ items

Clipboard Operations:

• y - Copy current item (cycles: path → snippet → full content)
• Ctrl+Y - Copy all selected items (paths on separate lines)

📊 Ranking & Scoring Explained

The Six Ranking Modes

Cycle through modes with F12:

1. Recent Heavy (default): Strongly favors recent conversations

   • Score = text_relevance × 0.3 + recency × 0.7
   • Best for: "What was I working on?"

2. Balanced: Equal weight to relevance and recency

   • Score = text_relevance × 0.5 + recency × 0.5
   • Best for: General-purpose search

3. Relevance: Prioritizes text match quality

   • Score = text_relevance × 0.8 + recency × 0.2
   • Best for: "Find the best explanation of X"

4. Match Quality: Penalizes fuzzy/wildcard matches

   • Score = text_relevance × 0.7 + recency × 0.2 + match_exactness × 0.1
   • Best for: Precise technical searches

5. Date Newest: Pure chronological order (newest first)

   • Ignores relevance scoring entirely
   • Best for: "Show me all recent activity"

6. Date Oldest: Pure reverse chronological order (oldest first)

   • Ignores relevance scoring entirely
   • Best for: "When did I first work on this?"

Score Components

• Text Relevance (BM25): Tantivy's implementation of Okapi BM25, considering:

  • Term frequency in document
  • Inverse document frequency across corpus
  • Document length normalization

• Recency: Exponential decay from current time

  • Documents from today: ~1.0
  • Documents from last week: ~0.7
  • Documents from last month: ~0.3

• Match Exactness: Bonus for exact matches vs wildcards

  • Exact phrase: 1.0
  • Prefix match: 0.8
  • Suffix/Substring: 0.5
  • Fuzzy fallback: 0.3

Blended Scoring Formula

The final score combines all components using mode-specific weights:

Final_Score = BM25_Score × Match_Quality + α × Recency_Factor

Alpha (α) by Ranking Mode:

Match Quality Factors:

Recency Factor: timestamp / max_timestamp normalized to [0, 1].

This formula ensures that "Recent Heavy" mode (default) surfaces your most recent work, while "Relevance Heavy" finds the best explanations regardless of age.

🔄 The Normalization Pipeline

Each connector transforms agent-specific formats into a unified schema:

┌─────────────────┐     ┌──────────────────┐     ┌─────────────────┐
│  Agent Files    │ ──▶ │    Connector     │ ──▶ │  Normalized     │
│  (proprietary)  │     │  (per-agent)     │     │  Conversation   │
└─────────────────┘     └──────────────────┘     └─────────────────┘
     JSONL                   detect()                agent_slug
     SQLite                  scan()                  workspace
     Markdown                                        messages[]
     JSON                                            created_at

Role Normalization

Different agents use different role names:

Timestamp Handling

Agents store timestamps inconsistently:

Content Flattening

Tool calls, code blocks, and nested structures are flattened for searchability:

// Original (Claude Code)
{"type": "tool_use", "name": "Read", "input": {"path": "/foo/bar.rs"}}

// Flattened for indexing
"[Tool: Read] path=/foo/bar.rs"

🧹 Deduplication Strategy

The same conversation content can appear multiple times due to:

• Agent file rewrites
• Backup files
• Symlinked directories
• Re-indexing

Content-Based Deduplication

cass uses a multi-layer deduplication strategy:

1. Message Hash: BLAKE3 of (role + content + timestamp)

   • Identical messages in different files are stored once

2. Conversation Fingerprint: Hash of first N message hashes

   • Detects duplicate conversation files

3. Search-Time Dedup: Results are deduplicated by content similarity

   • Even if stored twice, shown once in results

Noise Filtering

Common low-value content is filtered from results:

• Empty messages
• Pure whitespace
• System prompts (unless searching for them)
• Repeated tool acknowledgments

💼 Use Cases & Workflows

1. "I solved this before..."

# Find past solutions for similar errors
cass search "TypeError: Cannot read property" --days 30

# In TUI: F12 to switch to "relevance" mode for best matches

2. Cross-Agent Knowledge Transfer

# What has ANY agent said about authentication in this project?
cass search "authentication" --workspace /path/to/project

# Export findings for a new agent's context
cass export /path/to/relevant/session.jsonl --format markdown

3. Daily/Weekly Review

# What did I work on today?
cass timeline --today --json | jq '.groups[].conversations'

# TUI: Press Shift+F5 to cycle through time filters

4. Debugging Workflow Archaeology

# Find all debugging sessions for a specific file
cass search "debug src/auth/login.rs" --agent claude

# Expand context around a specific line in a session
cass expand /path/to/session.jsonl -n 150 -C 10

5. Agent-to-Agent Handoff

# Current agent searches what previous agents learned
cass search "database migration strategy" --robot --fields minimal

# Get full context for a relevant session
cass view /path/to/session.jsonl -n 42 --json

6. Building Training Data

# Export high-quality problem-solving sessions
cass search "bug fix" --robot --limit 100 | \
  jq '.hits[] | select(.score > 0.8)' > training_candidates.json

🎯 Command Palette

Press Ctrl+P to open the command palette—a fuzzy-searchable menu of all available actions.

Available Commands

Usage

1. Press Ctrl+P to open
2. Type to fuzzy-filter commands
3. Use Up/Down to navigate
4. Press Enter to execute
5. Press Esc to close

💾 Saved Views

Save your current filter configuration to one of 9 slots for instant recall.

What Gets Saved

• Active filters (agent, workspace, time range)
• Current ranking mode
• The search query

Keyboard Shortcuts

Via Command Palette

1. Ctrl+P → "Save view to slot N"
2. Ctrl+P → "Load view from slot N"
3. Ctrl+P → "Saved views" to list all slots

Persistence

Views are stored in tui_state.json and persist across sessions. Clear all saved views with Ctrl+Shift+Del (resets all TUI state).

📐 Density Modes

Control how many lines each search result occupies. Cycle with Shift+D or via the command palette.

The pane automatically adjusts how many results fit based on terminal height and density mode.

🎨 Theme System

cass includes a sophisticated theming system with multiple presets, accessibility-aware color choices, and adaptive styling.

Theme Presets

Cycle through 19 built-in theme presets with F2:

WCAG Accessibility

All theme colors are validated against WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) contrast requirements:

• Text on backgrounds: Minimum 4.5:1 contrast ratio (AA standard)
• Large text/headers: Minimum 3:1 contrast ratio
• Interactive elements: Clear visual distinction from content

The theming engine calculates relative luminance and contrast ratios at runtime to ensure readability across all color combinations.

Role-Aware Message Styling

Conversation messages are color-coded by role for quick visual parsing:

Each agent type (Claude, Codex, Cursor, etc.) also receives a subtle tint, making multi-agent result lists instantly scannable.

Adaptive Borders

Border decorations automatically adapt to terminal width:

Toggle between rounded Unicode and plain ASCII borders with Ctrl+B.

🔖 Bookmark System

Save important search results with notes and tags for later reference.

Features

• Persistent storage: Bookmarks saved to bookmarks.db (SQLite)
• Notes: Add annotations explaining why you bookmarked something
• Tags: Organize with comma-separated tags (e.g., "rust, important, auth")
• Search: Find bookmarks by title, note, or snippet content
• Export/Import: JSON format for backup and sharing

Bookmark Structure

{
  "id": 1,
  "title": "Auth bug fix discussion",
  "source_path": "/path/to/session.jsonl",
  "line_number": 42,
  "agent": "claude_code",
  "workspace": "/projects/myapp",
  "note": "Good explanation of JWT refresh flow",
  "tags": "auth, jwt, important",
  "snippet": "The token refresh logic should..."
}

Storage Location

Bookmarks are stored separately from the main index:

• Linux: ~/.local/share/coding-agent-search/bookmarks.db
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/coding-agent-search/bookmarks.db
• Windows: %APPDATA%\coding-agent-search\bookmarks.db

🔔 Toast Notification System

cass uses a non-intrusive toast notification system for transient feedback—operations complete, errors occur, or state changes without modal dialogs interrupting your workflow.

Notification Types

Behavior

• Non-Blocking: Toasts appear in a corner without stealing focus
• Auto-Dismiss: Each type has an appropriate display duration
• Message Coalescing: Duplicate messages show a count badge instead of stacking
• Configurable Position: Toasts can appear in any corner (default: top-right)
• Maximum Visible: Limited to 3-5 visible toasts to prevent screen clutter

Visual Design

Toasts feature:

• Color-coded borders: Matches notification type (blue/green/yellow/red)
• Theme-aware: Adapts to current dark/light theme
• Subtle animation: Fade in/out for smooth appearance

Common Toast Messages

🏎️ Performance Engineering: Caching & Warming

To achieve sub-60ms latency on large datasets, cass implements a multi-tier caching strategy in src/search/query.rs:

1. Sharded LRU Cache: The prefix_cache is split into shards (default 256 entries each) to reduce mutex contention during concurrent reads/writes from the async searcher.
2. Bloom Filter Pre-checks: Each cached hit stores a 64-bit Bloom filter mask of its content tokens. When a user types more characters, we check the mask first. If the new token isn't in the mask, we reject the cache entry immediately without a string comparison.
3. Predictive Warming: A background WarmJob thread watches the input. When the user pauses typing, it triggers a lightweight "warm-up" query against the Tantivy reader to pre-load relevant index segments into the OS page cache.

🔌 The Connector Interface (Polymorphism)

The system is designed for extensibility via the Connector trait (src/connectors/mod.rs). This allows cass to treat disparate log formats as a uniform stream of events.

classDiagram
 class Connector {
 <<interface>>
 +detect() DetectionResult
 +scan(ScanContext) Vec~NormalizedConversation~
 }
 class NormalizedConversation {
 +agent_slug String
 +messages Vec~NormalizedMessage~
 }

 Connector <|-- CodexConnector
 Connector <|-- ClineConnector
 Connector <|-- ClaudeCodeConnector
 Connector <|-- GeminiConnector
 Connector <|-- ClawdbotConnector
 Connector <|-- VibeConnector
 Connector <|-- OpenCodeConnector
 Connector <|-- AmpConnector
 Connector <|-- CursorConnector
 Connector <|-- ChatGptConnector
 Connector <|-- AiderConnector
 Connector <|-- PiAgentConnector
 Connector <|-- FactoryConnector
 Connector <|-- CopilotConnector
 Connector <|-- CopilotCliConnector
 Connector <|-- OpenClawConnector
 Connector <|-- CrushConnector
 Connector <|-- HermesConnector
 Connector <|-- KimiConnector
 Connector <|-- QwenConnector

 CodexConnector ..> NormalizedConversation : emits
 ClineConnector ..> NormalizedConversation : emits
 ClaudeCodeConnector ..> NormalizedConversation : emits
 GeminiConnector ..> NormalizedConversation : emits
 ClawdbotConnector ..> NormalizedConversation : emits
 VibeConnector ..> NormalizedConversation : emits
 OpenCodeConnector ..> NormalizedConversation : emits
 AmpConnector ..> NormalizedConversation : emits
 CursorConnector ..> NormalizedConversation : emits
 ChatGptConnector ..> NormalizedConversation : emits
 AiderConnector ..> NormalizedConversation : emits
 PiAgentConnector ..> NormalizedConversation : emits
 FactoryConnector ..> NormalizedConversation : emits
 CopilotConnector ..> NormalizedConversation : emits
 CopilotCliConnector ..> NormalizedConversation : emits
 OpenClawConnector ..> NormalizedConversation : emits
 CrushConnector ..> NormalizedConversation : emits
 HermesConnector ..> NormalizedConversation : emits
 KimiConnector ..> NormalizedConversation : emits
 QwenConnector ..> NormalizedConversation : emits

• Polymorphic Scanning: The indexer runs connector factories in parallel via rayon, creating fresh Box<dyn Connector> instances that are unaware of each other's underlying file formats (JSONL, SQLite, specialized JSON).
• Resilient Parsing: Connectors handle legacy formats (e.g., integer vs ISO timestamps) and flatten complex tool-use blocks into searchable text.

🧠 Architecture & Engineering

cass uses frankensqlite as the durable source of truth and frankensearch as a derived speed layer, powered by a suite of integrated "franken" libraries.

The Pipeline

1. Discovery: franken_agent_detection auto-discovers sessions from 20 coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini, Aider, Amp, Cline, OpenCode, ChatGPT, Pi Agent, Copilot, Copilot CLI, OpenClaw, Clawdbot, Vibe, Crush, Hermes, Kimi, Qwen, Factory).
2. Storage (frankensqlite): The Source of Truth. Data is persisted to a normalized SQLite schema (messages, conversations, agents) via frankensqlite — a pure-Rust SQLite reimplementation with BEGIN CONCURRENT support for MVCC multi-writer transactions.
3. Search Index (frankensearch): The Speed Layer. New messages are incrementally pushed to a unified search index via frankensearch which provides BM25 lexical search, semantic embeddings, RRF fusion, and cross-encoder reranking in a single library.

• Fields: title, content, agent, workspace, created_at.
• Prefix Fields: title_prefix and content_prefix use Index-Time Edge N-Grams (not stored on disk to save space) for instant prefix matching.
• Deduping: Search results are deduplicated by content hash to remove noise from repeated tool outputs.

flowchart LR
 classDef pastel fill:#f4f2ff,stroke:#c2b5ff,color:#2e2963;
 classDef pastel2 fill:#e6f7ff,stroke:#9bd5f5,color:#0f3a4d;
 classDef pastel3 fill:#e8fff3,stroke:#9fe3c5,color:#0f3d28;
 classDef pastel4 fill:#fff7e6,stroke:#f2c27f,color:#4d350f;
 classDef pastel5 fill:#ffeef2,stroke:#f5b0c2,color:#4d1f2c;

 subgraph Sources["Local Sources"]
 A1[Codex]:::pastel
 A2[Cline]:::pastel
 A3[Gemini]:::pastel
 A4[Claude]:::pastel
 A5[OpenCode]:::pastel
 A6[Amp]:::pastel
 A7[Cursor]:::pastel
 A8[ChatGPT]:::pastel
 A9[Aider]:::pastel
 A10[Pi-Agent]:::pastel
 A11[Factory]:::pastel
 A12[Copilot Chat]:::pastel
 A13[Copilot CLI]:::pastel
 A14[OpenClaw]:::pastel
 A15[Clawdbot]:::pastel
 A16[Vibe]:::pastel
 A17[Crush]:::pastel
 A18[Hermes]:::pastel
 A19[Kimi]:::pastel
 A20[Qwen]:::pastel
 end

 subgraph Remote["Remote Sources"]
 R1["sources.toml"]:::pastel
 R2["SSH/rsync\nSync Engine"]:::pastel2
 R3["remotes/\nSynced Data"]:::pastel3
 end

 subgraph "Ingestion Layer"
 C1["franken_agent_detection\nAuto-Discover & Scan\nNormalize & Dedupe"]:::pastel2
 end

 subgraph "Storage + Search"
 S1["frankensqlite (WAL)\nSource of Truth\nBEGIN CONCURRENT\nMigrations"]:::pastel3
 T1["frankensearch\nBM25 + Semantic\nRRF Fusion\nReranking"]:::pastel4
 end

 subgraph "Presentation"
 U1["TUI (FrankenTUI)\nElm Architecture\nAnalytics Dashboard\nAsync Search"]:::pastel5
 U2["CLI / Robot\nJSON Output\nAutomation"]:::pastel5
 end

 A1 --> C1
 A2 --> C1
 A3 --> C1
 A4 --> C1
 A5 --> C1
 A6 --> C1
 A7 --> C1
 A8 --> C1
 A9 --> C1
 A10 --> C1
 A11 --> C1
 A12 --> C1
 A13 --> C1
 A14 --> C1
 A15 --> C1
 A16 --> C1
 A17 --> C1
 A18 --> C1
 A19 --> C1
 A20 --> C1
 R1 --> R2
 R2 --> R3
 R3 --> C1
 C1 -->|Persist| S1
 C1 -->|Index| T1
 S1 -.->|Rebuild| T1
 T1 -->|Query| U1
 T1 -->|Query| U2

Background Indexing & Watch Mode

• Non-Blocking: The indexer runs in a background thread. You can search while it works.
• Parallel Discovery: Connector detection and scanning run in parallel across all CPU cores using rayon, significantly reducing startup time when multiple agents are installed.
• Watch Mode: Uses file system watchers (notify) to detect changes in agent logs. When you save a file or an agent replies, cass re-indexes just that conversation and refreshes the search view automatically.
• Real-Time Progress: The TUI footer updates in real-time showing discovered agent count and conversation totals with sparkline visualization (e.g., "📦 Indexing 150/2000 (7%) ▁▂▄▆█").

🔍 Deep Dive: Internals

The TUI Engine (Elm Architecture on FrankenTUI)

The interactive interface (src/ui/app.rs) uses FrankenTUI (ftui), a Rust TUI framework implementing the Elm architecture (Model-View-Update). The runtime handles terminal lifecycle, event polling, rendering, and cleanup.

1. Model (CassApp): A monolithic struct tracks the entire UI state (search query, cursor position, scroll offsets, active filters, cached details, animation state).
2. Update: Each event (key, mouse, tick, resize) maps to a CassMsg variant. The update() function produces Cmd effects (async tasks, ticks, quit).
3. View: The view() function renders the current state to an ftui Frame. The runtime diff engine minimizes terminal writes using Bayesian strategy selection.
4. Adaptive Budget: A 16ms (60fps) frame budget with PID-controlled degradation automatically simplifies rendering (borders, animations) when frame times exceed budget.
5. Background Tasks: Search queries, indexing, and analytics run on background threads via Cmd::Task, with results delivered as messages.

graph TD
 Input([User Input]) -->|Key/Mouse/Tick| Runtime
 Runtime -->|CassMsg| Update[Model::update]
 Update -->|Cmd| Runtime
 Update -->|State Change| View[Model::view]
 View -->|Frame| DiffEngine[Bayesian Diff]
 DiffEngine -->|Minimal Writes| Terminal

 Update -->|Cmd::Task| Background[Background Thread]
 Background -->|Result Msg| Runtime

Append-Only Storage Strategy

Data integrity is paramount. cass treats the SQLite database (src/storage/sqlite.rs, powered by frankensqlite) as an append-only log for conversations:

• Immutable History: When an agent adds a message to a conversation, we don't update the existing row. We insert the new message linked to the conversation ID.
• Deduplication: The connector layer uses content hashing to prevent duplicate messages if an agent re-writes a file.
• Versioning: A schema_version meta-table and strict migration path ensure that upgrades (like the recent move to v3) are safe and atomic.

🛡️ Index Resilience & Recovery

cass treats search indexes as derived assets. The SQLite archive is authoritative; lexical and semantic search data can be rebuilt from it.

Schema Version Tracking

Every Tantivy index stores a schema_hash.json file containing the schema version:

{"schema_hash":"tantivy-schema-v4-edge-ngram-agent-string"}

Automatic Recovery Scenarios

Manual Recovery

# Check the current truth surface first
cass triage --json
cass health --json
cass status --json

# If not ready, run the first targeted command from recommended_commands[].
# For a fresh data dir this is usually:
cass index --full --json --no-progress-events --data-dir <same-data-dir>

Manual rebuild commands are for first setup, explicit operator refresh, or cases where recommended_commands[] asks for them. A normal missing/stale lexical asset should be repaired as derived state from SQLite, not treated as lost user data.

Design Principles

1. Never lose source data: cass only reads agent files, never modifies them
2. SQLite is the source of truth: Derived lexical and semantic assets can be rebuilt
3. Atomic publish: Rebuilt assets are prepared in scratch space and published only when complete
4. Graceful degradation: Hybrid search continues as lexical when semantic enrichment is unavailable

Index Recovery & Self-Healing

cass maintains multiple layers of redundancy to recover from corruption or schema changes:

Schema Hash Versioning:
Each Tantivy index stores a schema_hash.json file containing a hash of the current schema definition. On startup:

1. If hash matches → open existing index
2. If hash differs → schema changed, trigger rebuild
3. If file missing/corrupted → assume stale, trigger rebuild

This ensures that version upgrades with schema changes can rebuild the lexical derivative without user intervention.

Automatic Rebuild Triggers:

SQLite as Ground Truth:
The SQLite database serves as the authoritative data store. Lexical rebuilds reconstruct the Tantivy index from SQLite:

// Iterate all conversations from SQLite
// Re-index each message into fresh Tantivy index
// Progress tracked via IndexingProgress for UI feedback

This means corrupted lexical data is a repairable derivative-state problem. Operators should start with cass triage --json for the exact next command, or read cass health --json / cass status --json for the narrower readiness snapshot.

Database Schema Migrations

The SQLite database uses versioned schema migrations:

Migration Process:

1. On startup, cass checks schema_version in the database
2. If version < current, migrations run automatically
3. Migrations are incremental and non-destructive
4. User data (bookmarks, TUI state, sources.toml) is always preserved

Safe Files (never deleted during rebuild):

• bookmarks.db - Your saved bookmarks
• tui_state.json - UI preferences
• sources.toml - Remote source configuration
• .env - Environment configuration

Backup and Retention Policy: Migration/rebuild backups preserve user data and
are not treated as disposable source evidence. Derived lexical publish backups
use the bounded retention policy documented above, while quarantined artifacts
and repair candidates persist until an operator runs an explicit, fingerprinted
cleanup flow.

⏱️ Watch Mode Internals

The --watch flag enables real-time index updates as agent files change.

Debouncing Strategy

File change detected
       ↓
[2 second debounce window]  ← Accumulate more changes
       ↓
[5 second max wait]         ← Force flush if changes keep coming
       ↓
Re-index affected files

• Debounce: 2 seconds (wait for burst of changes to settle)
• Max wait: 5 seconds (don't wait forever during continuous activity)

Path Classification

Each file system event is routed to the appropriate connector:

~/.claude/projects/foo.jsonl  → ClaudeCodeConnector
~/.codex/sessions/rollout-*.jsonl → CodexConnector
~/.aider.chat.history.md → AiderConnector

State Tracking

Watch mode maintains watch_state.json:

{
  "last_scan_ts": 1699900000000,
  "watched_paths": [
    "~/.claude/projects",
    "~/.codex/sessions"
  ]
}

Incremental Safety

• File-level filtering only: When a file is modified, the entire file is re-scanned
• 1-second mtime slack: Accounts for filesystem timestamp granularity
• No per-message filtering: Prevents data loss when new messages are appended

Codex Token Backfill

Codex event_msg token_count usage is attached to the nearest preceding assistant turn during indexing.
If you indexed Codex sessions before this behavior existed, backfill usage coverage with:

cass index --full
cass analytics rebuild --track a

🐚 Shell Completions

Generate tab-completion scripts for your shell.

Installation

Bash:

cass completions bash > ~/.local/share/bash-completion/completions/cass
# Or: cass completions bash >> ~/.bashrc

Zsh:

cass completions zsh > "${fpath[1]}/_cass"
# Or add to ~/.zshrc: eval "$(cass completions zsh)"

Fish:

cass completions fish > ~/.config/fish/completions/cass.fish

PowerShell:

cass completions powershell >> $PROFILE

What's Completed

• Subcommands (search, index, stats, etc.)
• Flags and options (--robot, --agent, --limit)
• File paths for relevant arguments

System Requirements

• CPU: x86_64 processor with AVX instruction support (any Intel/AMD CPU from ~2011 onwards). The ONNX Runtime dependency used for semantic search requires AVX instructions. On CPUs without AVX support, the binary will crash with a SIGILL (illegal instruction) signal. The cass binary includes a runtime check and will print a clear error message if AVX is not detected, but note that ONNX Runtime may be loaded before this check in some code paths.
• OS: Linux, macOS, or Windows
• Linux glibc: Pre-built binaries require glibc 2.38+ (Ubuntu 24.04+, Fedora 39+, Debian 13+). Ubuntu 20.04 (glibc 2.31) and 22.04 (glibc 2.35) are not supported with pre-built binaries. Users on older distributions should build from source with cargo install --git https://github.com/Dicklesworthstone/coding_agent_session_search. This requirement exists because CI builds target ubuntu-24.04 to access newer kernel features used by the frankensqlite storage engine.
• Disk: Sufficient space for the search index (varies with session history size)

🚀 Quickstart

1. Install

Recommended: Homebrew (Apple Silicon macOS + Linux)

brew install dicklesworthstone/tap/cass

# Update later
brew upgrade cass

Homebrew bottles are currently published for Linux and Apple Silicon macOS. On Intel macOS, use the install script with --from-source.

Windows: Scoop

scoop bucket add dicklesworthstone https://github.com/Dicklesworthstone/scoop-bucket
scoop install dicklesworthstone/cass

Alternative: Install Script

curl -fsSL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Dicklesworthstone/coding_agent_session_search/main/install.sh?$(date +%s)" \
  | bash -s -- --easy-mode --verify

Alternative: GitHub Release Binaries

1. Download the asset for your platform from GitHub Releases.
2. Verify SHA256SUMS.txt against the downloaded archive.
3. Extract and move cass into your PATH.

Example (Linux x86_64, replace VERSION with an explicit release tag):

VERSION=v0.2.0  # e.g. v0.2.0
curl -L -o cass-linux-amd64.tar.gz \
  "https://github.com/Dicklesworthstone/coding_agent_session_search/releases/download/${VERSION}/cass-linux-amd64.tar.gz"
curl -L -o SHA256SUMS.txt \
  "https://github.com/Dicklesworthstone/coding_agent_session_search/releases/download/${VERSION}/SHA256SUMS.txt"
sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS.txt
tar -xzf cass-linux-amd64.tar.gz
install -m 755 cass ~/.local/bin/cass

2. Launch

cass

On first run, cass performs a full index. You'll see progress in the footer. Search works immediately (falling back to SQLite or partial results until complete).

3. Usage

• Type to search: "python error", "refactor auth", "c++".
• Wildcards: Use foo* (prefix), *foo (suffix), or *foo* (contains) for flexible matching.
• Navigation: Up/Down to select, Right to focus detail pane. Up/Down in search bar navigates query history.
• Filters:
  • F3: Filter by Agent (e.g., "codex").
  • F4: Filter by Workspace/Project.
  • F5/F6: Time filters (Today, Week, etc.).
• Modes:
  • F2: Toggle Dark/Light theme.
  • F12: Cycle ranking mode (recent → balanced → relevance → quality → newest → oldest).
  • Ctrl+B: Toggle rounded/plain borders.
• Actions:
  • Enter: Open selected result in contextual detail modal (defaults to Messages tab).
  • Enter with no selected hit: submit query behavior (no-op if empty).
  • F8: Open selected hit in $EDITOR.
  • Ctrl+Enter: Add current result to queue (multi-open).
  • Ctrl+O: Open all queued results in editor.
  • Ctrl+M / Ctrl+X: Toggle selection on current item.
  • A: Bulk actions menu (when items selected).
  • y: Copy file path or snippet to clipboard.
  • /: Find text within detail pane; n/N cycle matches; Esc exits find before closing modal.
  • Ctrl+Shift+R: Trigger manual re-index (refresh search results).
  • Ctrl+Shift+Del: Reset TUI state (clear history, filters, layout).

4. Multi-Machine Search (Optional)

Aggregate sessions from your other machines into a unified index:

# Add a remote machine
cass sources add [email protected] --preset macos-defaults

# Sync sessions from all sources
cass sources sync

# Check source health and connectivity
cass sources doctor

See Remote Sources (Multi-Machine Search) for full documentation.

🛠️ CLI Reference

The cass binary supports both interactive use and automation.

# Interactive
cass [tui] [--data-dir DIR] [--once] [--asciicast FILE]

# Indexing
cass index [--full] [--watch] [--data-dir DIR] [--idempotency-key KEY]

# Search
cass search "query" --robot --limit 5 [--timeout 5000] [--explain] [--dry-run]
cass search "error" --robot --aggregate agent,workspace --fields minimal
cass pack "query" --robot --max-tokens 12000 [--limit 40] [--sessions-from FILE|-]
cass pack "query" --robot --freshness-policy strict --freshness-window-seconds 604800 --require-evidence
cass pack "query" --robot --max-tokens 4000 --max-evidence 8 --max-sessions 3 --max-excerpt-chars 600

# Inspection & Health
cass triage --json                    # One-shot agent preflight with exact next command
cass status --json                    # Quick health snapshot
cass health                           # Minimal pre-flight check (<50ms)
cass capabilities --json              # First-stop agent self-description
cass introspect --json                # Full API schema
cass context /path/to/session --json  # Find related sessions
cass view /path/to/file -n 42 --json  # View source at line

# Session Analysis
cass export /path/to/session --format markdown -o out.md  # Export conversation
cass expand /path/to/session -n 42 -C 5 --json            # Context around line
cass timeline --today --json                               # Activity timeline

# Remote Sources
cass sources add user@host --preset macos-defaults  # Add machine
cass sources sync                                    # Sync sessions
cass sources doctor                                  # Check connectivity
cass sources mappings list laptop                    # View path mappings

# Utilities
cass stats --json
cass completions bash > ~/.bash_completion.d/cass

Core Commands

Specialized Validation and Recording Tools

Diagnostic Commands

Commands for troubleshooting, debugging, and understanding system state:

# One-shot agent preflight
cass triage --json
# → { "surface": "triage", "status": "healthy", "next_command": null, ... }

# Health check (fast, <50ms)
cass health --json
# → { "healthy": true, "index_age_seconds": 120, "message_count": 5000 }

# Detailed status with recommendations
cass status --json
# → Includes index freshness, staleness threshold, recommended action

# System diagnostics
cass diag --verbose --json
# → Database stats, index info, connector status, environment

# Query explanation (debug why results are what they are)
cass search "auth" --explain --dry-run --robot
# → Shows parsed query, index strategy, cost estimate without executing

# Find related sessions
cass context /path/to/session.jsonl --json
# → Sessions from same workspace, same day, or same agent

# Archive-first diagnostic check
cass doctor check --json
# → Read-only checks for archive coverage, source authority, locks, backups,
#   storage pressure, semantic fallback, and recommended next action

# Fingerprinted repair plan and apply
cass doctor repair --dry-run --json
cass doctor repair --yes --plan-fingerprint <plan_fingerprint> --json
# → Builds candidates and applies only the inspected matching fingerprint

# Legacy safe auto-run for low-risk derived repairs
cass doctor --fix --json
# → Emits operation_outcome and receipts; fails closed on archive/source risk

The Doctor Command

cass doctor is a comprehensive diagnostic and repair tool designed for troubleshooting installation and data issues. Its current recovery model is archive-first: preserve cass-owned evidence, prove source authority and coverage, then repair through candidates and receipts. The full operator runbook is docs/planning/RECOVERY_RUNBOOK.md.

What it checks:

Safety guarantees:

• Preserves source evidence - Claude, Codex, Cursor, Gemini, remote mirrors, raw-mirror blobs, manifests, and source ledgers are treated as evidence.
• Preserves archive state - canonical SQLite archives, WAL/SHM sidecars, backup bundles, restore receipts, bookmarks, TUI state, and sources.toml are not cleanup targets.
• Separates diagnosis from mutation - check, archive-scan, baseline diff, backup verify, and support-bundle verify are read-only.
• Requires fingerprints for risky mutations - repair, restore apply, cleanup apply, archive normalize apply, and archive export apply consume the exact dry-run plan_fingerprint.
• Fails closed on coverage risk - source pruning, sole-copy warnings, ambiguous authority, failed probes, or repeated repair markers block unsafe repair until inspected.
• Keeps support bundles scrubbed - default bundles include redacted summaries and checksummed manifests, not raw session logs or full archive copies.

Recommended support checklist:

cass doctor check --json
cass doctor baseline diff <baseline_id> --json
cass doctor support-bundle --json
cass doctor support-bundle verify <bundle_or_manifest_path> --json

Send the doctor JSON, latest failure_context.json if present, support-bundle
manifest.json, any baseline diff, relevant artifact_manifest_path and
event_log_path values, and the exact command/exit code. Do not attach raw
sessions, full SQLite archives, private source files, or encrypted payloads
unless the user explicitly opts into sensitive evidence attachment.

Diagnostic Flags:

Model Management

Commands for managing the semantic search ML model:

# Check current model status (abbreviated schema — real output also
# includes cache_lifecycle, files[], revision, license, and more):
cass models status --json
# → {
#     "model_id": "all-minilm-l6-v2",
#     "model_dir": "~/.local/share/coding-agent-search/models/all-MiniLM-L6-v2",
#     "installed": false,
#     "state": "not_acquired",
#     "state_detail": "model not acquired (user consent required); missing ...",
#     "next_step": "Run `cass models install`, or keep using lexical search.",
#     "lexical_fail_open": true,
#     "revision": "c9745ed1...",
#     "license": "Apache-2.0",
#     "total_size_bytes": 90872535,
#     "installed_size_bytes": 0,
#     "observed_file_bytes": 0,
#     "policy_source": "semantic_policy"
#   }

# Install model (downloads ~90MB from Hugging Face on explicit request)
cass models install
# → Downloads from Hugging Face, verifies checksum

# Install from local directory (air-gapped environments)
cass models install --from-file /path/to/model-dir

# Verify model integrity
cass models verify --json
# → all_valid bool + per-file SHA-256 checks (see `cass models verify --help`)

# Check for model updates
cass models check-update --json
# → { "update_available": bool, "reason": str,
#     "current_revision": str|null, "latest_revision": str }

Model Files (stored in $CASS_DATA_DIR/models/all-MiniLM-L6-v2/):

• model.onnx - The neural network weights (~90MB)
• tokenizer.json - Vocabulary and tokenization rules
• config.json - Model configuration
• special_tokens_map.json - Special token definitions
• tokenizer_config.json - Tokenizer settings

🔒 Integrity & Safety

• Verified Install: The installer enforces SHA256 checksums.

• Sandboxed Data: All indexes/DBs live in standard platform data directories (~/.local/share/coding-agent-search on Linux).

• Read-Only Source: cass never modifies your agent log files. It only reads them.

Atomic File Operations

cass uses crash-safe atomic write patterns throughout to prevent data corruption:

TUI State Persistence (tui_state.json):

1. Serialize state to JSON
2. Write to temporary file (tui_state.json.tmp)
3. Atomic rename: temp → final

If a crash occurs during step 2, the original file is untouched. The rename operation (step 3) is atomic on all modern filesystems—it either completes fully or not at all.

ML Model Installation (models/all-MiniLM-L6-v2/):

1. Download to temp directory (models/all-MiniLM-L6-v2.tmp/)
2. Verify all checksums
3. If existing model present: rename to backup (models/all-MiniLM-L6-v2.bak/)
4. Atomic rename: temp → final
5. On success: remove backup
6. On failure: restore from backup

This backup-rename-cleanup pattern ensures that either the old model or new model is always available—never a half-installed state.

Configuration Files (sources.toml, watch_state.json):
All configuration writes follow the same temp-file-then-rename pattern, ensuring consistency even during power loss or unexpected termination.

Why This Matters:

• System crashes mid-write won't corrupt your preferences
• Network interruptions during model download won't leave broken installations
• Concurrent processes won't see partially-written files

📦 Installer Strategy

The project ships with a robust installer (install.sh / install.ps1) designed for CI/CD and local use:

• Checksum Verification: Validates artifacts against a .sha256 file or explicit --checksum flag.

• Rustup Bootstrap: Automatically installs the nightly toolchain if missing.

• Easy Mode: --easy-mode automates installation to ~/.local/bin without prompts.

• Platform Agnostic: Detects OS/Arch (Linux/macOS/Windows, x86_64/arm64) and fetches the correct binary.

🔄 Automatic Update Checking

cass includes a built-in update checker that notifies you when new versions are available, without interrupting your workflow.

How It Works

1. Background Check: On TUI startup, a background thread queries GitHub releases
2. Rate Limiting: Checks run at most once per hour to avoid API rate limits
3. Non-Blocking: Update checks never slow down TUI startup or search operations
4. Offline-Safe: Failed network requests are silently ignored

Update Notifications

When a new version is available, a notification appears in the TUI with:

• Current version vs. available version
• Release highlights (from GitHub release notes)
• Options: Update Now | Skip This Version | Remind Later

Self-Update Installation

Selecting "Update Now" runs the same verified installer used for initial installation:

macOS/Linux:

curl -fsSL https://...install.sh | bash -s -- --easy-mode --verify

Windows (PowerShell):

& ([scriptblock]::Create((irm "https://...install.ps1"))) -EasyMode -Verify

The update process:

1. Downloads the new binary with SHA256 verification
2. Backs up the current binary
3. Replaces with the new version
4. Prompts to restart cass

Skip Version

If you're not ready to update, "Skip This Version" records the skipped version in persistent state. That specific version won't trigger notifications again, but future versions will.

Disable Update Checks

For automated environments or personal preference:

# Environment variable
export CODING_AGENT_SEARCH_NO_UPDATE_PROMPT=1

# Or for fully headless operation
export TUI_HEADLESS=1

State Persistence

Update check state is stored in the data directory:

• last_update_check: Timestamp of last check (for rate limiting)
• skipped_version: Version user chose to skip
• Both are reset on manual update or by deleting tui_state.json

⚙️ Environment

• Config: Loads .env via dotenvy::dotenv().ok(); configure API/base paths there. Do not overwrite .env.

• Data Location: Defaults to standard platform data directories (e.g., ~/.local/share/coding-agent-search). Override with CASS_DATA_DIR or --data-dir.

• ChatGPT Support: The ChatGPT macOS app stores conversations in versioned formats:

  • v1 (legacy): Unencrypted JSON in conversations-{uuid}/ — fully indexed.
  • v2/v3: Encrypted with AES-256-GCM, key stored in macOS Keychain (OpenAI-signed apps only) — detected but skipped.

  Encrypted conversations require keychain access which isn't available to third-party apps. Legacy unencrypted conversations are indexed automatically.

• Logs: Written to cass.log (daily rotating) in the data directory.

• Updates: Interactive TUI checks for GitHub releases on startup. Skip with CODING_AGENT_SEARCH_NO_UPDATE_PROMPT=1 or TUI_HEADLESS=1.

• Cache tuning: CASS_CACHE_SHARD_CAP (per-shard entries, default 256) and CASS_CACHE_TOTAL_CAP (total cached hits across shards, default 2048) control prefix cache size; raise cautiously to avoid memory bloat.

• Cache debug: set CASS_DEBUG_CACHE_METRICS=1 to emit cache hit/miss/shortfall/reload stats via tracing (debug level).

• Watch testing (dev only): cass index --watch --watch-once path1,path2 triggers a single reindex without filesystem notify (also respects CASS_TEST_WATCH_PATHS for backward compatibility); useful for deterministic tests/smoke runs.

Complete Environment Variable Reference

Sibling Dependency Contract

cass pins git revisions in Cargo.toml for asupersync, frankensqlite/fsqlite-types, franken-agent-detection, frankensearch, frankentui, and toon (tru). The repo also commits local [patch] overrides for frankensqlite, franken-agent-detection, and frankensearch; the remaining sibling repos can be switched to /data/projects/* checkouts during local development.

Build-time validation

• build.rs validates the active local overrides against the expected package name, package version, patch path, and Cargo feature/default-features contract.
• If an active sibling checkout has drifted away from the pinned git revision or has a dirty worktree, the build emits a warning instead of silently trusting it.
• Enable strict enforcement with rch exec -- env CARGO_TARGET_DIR=/tmp/cass-strict-target cargo check --features strict-path-dep-validation or rch exec -- env CARGO_TARGET_DIR=/tmp/cass-strict-target CASS_STRICT_PATH_DEP_VALIDATION=1 cargo check. Strict mode upgrades drift warnings to hard errors and also validates the optional sibling repos before you switch them to local path overrides.

Expected interface contract

• frankensqlite (fsqlite): Connection, params!, and compat::{ConnectionExt, RowExt} with row.get_typed(...).
• franken-agent-detection: AgentDetectOptions and detect_installed_agents(...).
• frankensearch: lexical::cass_open_search_reader, lexical::ReloadPolicy, ModelCategory, and ModelTier.
• frankentui: ftui::Frame, GraphemePool, Style, ftui-runtime, ftui-tty, and the ftui-extras features enabled by cass.
• asupersync: runtime::RuntimeBuilder and http::h1::HttpClient::builder().
• toon (tru): toon::encode(...).

When intentionally updating one of these sibling crates, update the manifest pin, the build.rs contract, and the compile-contract test together.

🩺 Troubleshooting

• TUI looks monochrome / “1981 mode”: Check TERM and NO_COLOR.
  Full-style launch example:

  env -u NO_COLOR TERM=xterm-256color COLORTERM=truecolor cass
  

  If you intentionally want monochrome, use CASS_NO_COLOR=1 cass.
  If a wrapper keeps forcing TERM=dumb and UI still degrades, either fix TERM or force raw mode explicitly with CASS_ALLOW_DUMB_TERM=1 cass.

• Checksum mismatch: Ensure .sha256 is reachable or pass --checksum explicitly. Check proxies/firewalls.

• Binary not on PATH: Append ~/.local/bin (or your --dest) to PATH; re-open shell.

• Rust toolchain missing in CI: Set RUSTUP_INIT_SKIP=1 if the pinned toolchain is preinstalled; otherwise allow installer to run rustup.

• Watch mode not triggering: Confirm watch_state.json updates and that connector roots are accessible; notify relies on OS file events (inotify/FSEvents).

• Reset TUI state: Run cass tui --reset-state (or press Ctrl+Shift+Del in the TUI) to delete tui_state.json and restore defaults.

🧪 Developer Workflow

We target stable Rust as pinned by rust-toolchain.toml. Agents should
offload build, test, lint, and snapshot commands with rch.

# Format & Lint
rch exec -- env CARGO_TARGET_DIR=/tmp/cass-dev-target cargo fmt --check
rch exec -- env CARGO_TARGET_DIR=/tmp/cass-dev-target cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings

# Build & Test
rch exec -- env CARGO_TARGET_DIR=/tmp/cass-dev-target cargo build --release
rch exec -- env CARGO_TARGET_DIR=/tmp/cass-dev-target cargo test

# Run End-to-End Tests
rch exec -- env CARGO_TARGET_DIR=/tmp/cass-dev-target cargo test --test e2e_index_tui
rch exec -- env CARGO_TARGET_DIR=/tmp/cass-dev-target cargo test --test install_scripts

Snapshot Baseline Workflow (FrankenTUI)

Use targeted snapshot runs; do not blindly bless everything:

# Verify current baselines
rch exec -- env CARGO_TARGET_DIR=/tmp/cass-snapshot-target cargo test snapshot_baseline_ -- --nocapture
rch exec -- env CARGO_TARGET_DIR=/tmp/cass-snapshot-target cargo test snapshot_search_surface_ -- --nocapture
rch exec -- env CARGO_TARGET_DIR=/tmp/cass-snapshot-target cargo test --test ftui_harness_snapshots -- --nocapture

# Regenerate only the suite you intentionally changed
rch exec -- env CARGO_TARGET_DIR=/tmp/cass-snapshot-target BLESS=1 cargo test snapshot_baseline_ -- --nocapture

The full regeneration/review protocol (required reviewer checklist, behavioral guard tests,
and quality gates) lives in docs/planning/TESTING.md under
Snapshot Baseline Regeneration & Review (FrankenTUI).

HTML Export E2E Logging

Playwright E2E runs emit a setup metadata file at tests/e2e/exports/setup-metadata.json and
export its path as TEST_EXPORT_SETUP_LOG in tests/e2e/.env.test. On failures, tests attach
per-test browser logs (console/pageerror/requestfailed). Set E2E_LOG_ALWAYS=1 to attach logs
for every test. These paths are generated run artifacts and are intentionally ignored; durable
logging schema documentation lives in docs/reference/E2E_LOGGING_SCHEMA.md.

Release Build Optimizations

The release profile is aggressively optimized for binary size and performance:

[profile.release]
lto = true              # Link-time optimization across all crates
codegen-units = 1       # Single codegen unit for better optimization
strip = true            # Remove debug symbols from binary
panic = "abort"         # Smaller panic handling (no unwinding)
opt-level = "z"         # Optimize for size over speed

Trade-offs:

• Build time is significantly longer (~3-5x)
• Binary size is ~40-50% smaller
• No stack traces on panic (use debug builds for development)

CI Pipeline & Artifacts

The CI pipeline (.github/workflows/ci.yml) runs on every PR and push to main:

Coverage Reports:

• lcov.info - LCOV format for tools like codecov
• coverage-summary.txt - Human-readable summary
• Coverage % shown in GitHub Actions step summary

Test Artifacts:

• Trace files from --trace-file runs
• Test run summary logs
• Retained for 7 days (e2e) / 30 days (coverage)

# Generate coverage through rch
# Ensure cargo-llvm-cov is already installed before agent-run gates.
rch exec -- env CARGO_TARGET_DIR=/tmp/cass-coverage-target cargo llvm-cov --all-features --workspace --text

# Run specific e2e tests
rch exec -- env CARGO_TARGET_DIR=/tmp/cass-e2e-target cargo test --test e2e_filters -- --test-threads=1

About Contributions

About Contributions: Please don't take this the wrong way, but I do not accept outside contributions for any of my projects. I simply don't have the mental bandwidth to review anything, and it's my name on the thing, so I'm responsible for any problems it causes; thus, the risk-reward is highly asymmetric from my perspective. I'd also have to worry about other "stakeholders," which seems unwise for tools I mostly make for myself for free. Feel free to submit issues, and even PRs if you want to illustrate a proposed fix, but know I won't merge them directly. Instead, I'll have Claude or Codex review submissions via gh and independently decide whether and how to address them. Bug reports in particular are welcome. Sorry if this offends, but I want to avoid wasted time and hurt feelings. I understand this isn't in sync with the prevailing open-source ethos that seeks community contributions, but it's the only way I can move at this velocity and keep my sanity.