Feature Request: Session History Search

[kyle-ingka]

Feature Request: Session History Search

Problem

Copilot CLI stores session history in ~/.copilot/session-state/ as JSONL files, but there's no built-in way to search through past sessions. Users often need to:

1. Find how they solved a similar problem before
2. Resume a session from days/weeks ago by topic
3. Review what they worked on (for reports, handovers)
4. Search for specific commands or discussions

Currently, users must manually browse files or build custom tooling.

Proposed Solution

Add a copilot --search <keyword> or copilot search <keyword> command that:

1. Searches session content - Both user messages and assistant responses
2. Interactive selection - Like copilot --resume picker but with search
3. Resume integration - Select a result and resume that session directly

Example UX

# Search sessions
$ copilot search "docker compose"

# Interactive search (like --resume but with filtering)
$ copilot search --interactive

# Search only user messages
$ copilot search "kubernetes" --user-only

Why This Matters

• Knowledge reuse - Solutions discovered once shouldn't be lost
• Context recovery - Resume work after interruptions
• Productivity - Avoid re-solving the same problems

Current Workaround

I built a shell script using ripgrep + fzf that searches sessions in ~0.08s for 67MB of history. Happy to share if helpful for implementation reference.

Additional Context

• Session files are JSONL with user.message and assistant.message types
• ripgrep handles the search extremely fast (no index needed for reasonable history sizes)
• Integration with existing --resume flow would be ideal

[github-actions]

Thank you for your issue! We have categorized it as an enhancement, and it has been added to our backlog. In doing so, we are not committing to implementing this feature at this time, but, we will consider it for future releases based on community feedback and our own product roadmap.

If you come across this issue and would like to see it implemented, please add a thumbs up! This will help us prioritize the feature. Please only comment if you have additional information or viewpoints to contribute.

[patniko]

Might play with this in the near future. Resuming sessions is a bit cumbersome when you have high activity. Keep you posted.

[MicroMichaelIE]

@kyle-ingka I came looking for the same thing. I think it's a feature that should exist in an ideal world - would be great to just have a /resume {conversation_id} .

I took inspiration from what you mentioned and bundled it into an MCP which I wrote quickly with help from GHCP called
copilot history.

If you have suggestions for features and/or improvements please. Core functionality is to search the ~/.copilot/session-state.

[examon]

This has been addressed in a different form than originally proposed. There is experimental support for searching past session content in agent workflows, though not as a standalone copilot search <keyword> command, and it is not yet generally available to all users. If this does not meet your use case, please feel free to reopen the issue.