Cline Session History

Search and browse Cline session history stored on the local machine. Sessions live in ~/.cline/data/sessions/ as individual JSON metadata files and conversation transcript (.messages.json) files. Older sessions may also be in a sessions.db SQLite database.

When to Use This Skill

• "Find my session from the last hour about..."
• "Find my session that started with this prompt..."
• "Find the session where I asked about..."
• "Show me sessions that used model X"
• "What sessions failed yesterday?"
• "Show me the transcript for session <id>"
• "Export sessions from last week to a folder"
• "What was that session where..."
• Any request involving past Cline conversation history

How to Use

The search script lives alongside this file at scripts/search_sessions.py, relative to the skill's own directory. Resolve it against the directory that contains this SKILL.md — not the current working directory — so it works regardless of where the command is run from.

Script path: scripts/search_sessions.py (relative to this skill's directory)

The examples below use scripts/search_sessions.py; prefix it with the skill directory's absolute path when running from elsewhere.

All filters are optional and combine with AND logic.

Quick Examples

# Sessions from the last 10 minutes
python3 scripts/search_sessions.py --since 10m

# Sessions between two dates with "chatgpt" in the prompt
python3 scripts/search_sessions.py --since 2026-06-01 --until 2026-06-21 --prompt chatgpt

# Find a session by its starting prompt (quoted substring match)
python3 scripts/search_sessions.py --since 1d --prompt "find some code that should be improved" --full-prompt

# Non-interactive sessions that failed
python3 scripts/search_sessions.py --no-interactive --status failed

# VS Code extension sessions using Claude models, full prompts
python3 scripts/search_sessions.py --source vscode --model "claude" --full-prompt

# Full transcript of a specific session
python3 scripts/search_sessions.py --session-id 1781991507587_pozk0 --transcript

# Export matching sessions to a directory
python3 scripts/search_sessions.py --since 1d --export ~/tmp/exported-sessions

Time Filters

Both --since and --until accept:

• Relative: 10m, 30min, 2h, 1d, 1w (minutes, hours, days, weeks)
• ISO 8601: 2026-06-20, 2026-06-20T21:30:00Z, 2026-06-20T21:30:00+00:00

All Available Filters

Filter	Description
--since <time>	Sessions started after this time
--until <time>	Sessions started before this time
--prompt <text>	Case-insensitive substring search in prompt
--prompt-regex <pattern>	Regex search in prompt (case-insensitive)
--status <status>	running, idle, completed, cancelled, failed
--source <source>	cli, vscode, etc. (exact match)
--provider <name>	Provider name, exact match (e.g. cline)
--model <text>	Model name substring, case-insensitive (e.g. claude)
--mode <mode>	plan or act
--cwd <path>	Working directory substring match
--session-id <id>	Exact session ID lookup
--interactive / --no-interactive	Filter by interactive flag
--team-only / --no-team	Filter by team session flag
--subagents / --no-subagents	Include/exclude subagent sessions

Output Options

Option	Description
--full-prompt	Show full prompt text instead of truncated
--transcript	Print full conversation transcript
--max-messages <n>	Limit messages in transcript output
--content-types <types>	Comma-separated: text,thinking,tool_use,tool_result,image
--export <dir>	Copy matching session files to a directory
--limit <n>	Max number of sessions to return
--json	Output as JSON

Data Source Options

Option	Description
--sessions-dir <path>	Custom sessions directory (default: ~/.cline/data/sessions)
--db-path <path>	Custom sessions.db path
--no-db	Skip SQLite DB, only scan JSON files

Workflow

1. Start by running the search with the user's criteria to get a list of matching sessions.
2. If the user wants to see details, use --full-prompt or --transcript.
3. For transcript inspection, consider --max-messages and --content-types to focus on relevant parts.
4. For bulk export, use --export <dir> to copy session files.

Session Data Structure

Each session on disk has:

• <session_id>.json — Metadata: session_id, started_at, status, source, provider, model, cwd, prompt, metadata (mode, systemPrompt, cost, usage), etc.
• <session_id>.messages.json — Full conversation transcript with messages containing content blocks (text, thinking, tool_use, tool_result, image).

The SQLite sessions.db may contain older sessions with similar fields plus transcript_path, hook_path, parent_session_id, agent_id, is_subagent.