Memory

Past sessions

Resume prior work from ranked recall, transcript search, snapshots, summaries, chronological history, and archived sessions—with clear limits when capture was off.

“what were we working on last week?”

The sessions, what changed, and where you stopped.

“when did we discuss the rate limiter?”

The session, dated, with the relevant exchange.

“pick up where we left off”

The thread, with its open work.

Session continuity lets a fresh assistant take responsibility for the next step without making you replay the old conversation. It can retrieve the ranked history, snapshot, plan, and open work itself, then ask only about a gap the recorded evidence does not answer.

What can be recorded

Connected clients can save completed exchanges and snapshots at turning points — bookmarks that say what state the work was in. Setup-generated editor connections enable normal context and hook capture by default. A hand-written, unmanaged MCP connection does not automatically opt in.

An exchange records the completed user/assistant turn. A snapshot records the state worth resuming: what changed, active files, decisions, unresolved questions, open tasks, and the next move. A summary condenses the session; a delta focuses on what changed since an earlier point.

Capture is optional and client-dependent. The presence of a transcript-search feature does not mean every conversation was saved.

Why this beats scrollback

Scrollback is one window on one machine. Captured shared history can span assistants, machines, and authorized workspace members. The session you're looking for might have been in Cursor on your laptop three weeks ago — if that client was configured to capture it.

Finding things

Ask. "When did we discuss X" and "what did we try last time" both work directly. The escalation, when you want it:

  1. Ranked recall — "what were we working on" style questions. Covers most of it.
  2. Full-text across transcripts — every mention of a specific term.
  3. Snapshots — the turning points, when you want state rather than conversation.
  4. A chronological list — when the question is "when", not "what".
  5. One whole session — read it end to end, once you know which.

Your agent walks this itself. You just ask.

A useful resumption, not a chat replay

You stop a billing migration after the schema change is applied locally. The API compiles, one worker test still fails on legacy rows, and the unresolved question is whether old invoices should be backfilled or read through a compatibility path.

A good snapshot records that state:

  • the migration and reader files that changed;
  • the verification that passed;
  • the exact failing test and current error;
  • the approach already tried and why it was rejected;
  • the open backfill question;
  • the next safe step, including what must not run against production.

Tomorrow, “pick up the billing migration” can return that working state before the assistant searches or edits. You do not need the preceding hundred chat messages, and the assistant does not have to infer progress from a dirty working tree alone.

If capture was off and no snapshot was saved, ContextStream cannot reconstruct that conversation after the fact. It can still inspect current source, Git history, saved plans, decisions, and tasks, but it should label the missing session evidence instead of inventing a stopping point.

Long sessions and context pressure

A long working session can be compressed so the active context remains usable. Compression is not the same as deleting the transcript: it condenses what the current agent carries while durable captures and retained history remain available according to your settings.

Snapshots are especially useful before a major compaction or handoff. They preserve the working state even when exact earlier wording is no longer part of the live context window.

Saving something after the fact

If you realize later that a previous session contained a decision, note, or important checkpoint, it can be captured retrospectively from transcript evidence. The saved record includes provenance—the source query, transcript, and supporting snippets—so a later reader can see why it was created.

That is safer than writing a new “memory” from recollection and presenting it as though it were captured at the time.

Older archived history

Hosted deployments can move older transcripts outside the hot retention tier. An archive search can still retrieve them without pretending they are in the ordinary recent-session list.

Archive availability depends on the hosted product and retention policy. A local connection without that layer is not broken merely because archive search is absent.

Turning it off

For managed editor connections, normal and hook capture are separate controls:

Terminal
contextstream-mcp configure --transcripts off
contextstream-mcp configure --hook-transcripts off

Use --scope global, --scope project, or --scope all when you need to target specific config files. The trade is direct: uncaptured conversation cannot answer "what were we working on last week." Decisions and lessons that were saved separately still work.

These settings govern MCP context and supported editor-hook capture. They do not retroactively delete history already stored.

Deleting a transcript

You can list or open the intended transcript, verify its identity, and delete it. Deletion is distinct from turning future capture off. If the session also produced separate decisions, lessons, documents, tickets, or snapshots, review those records independently; removing a transcript does not mean every derived durable record should disappear.

If it doesn't work

Nothing from before a certain date. Capture was off, the client did not support it, the setup was unmanaged, or that work predates the connection.

Search finds the session but not the detail. Long sessions can compact, folding older turns into a summary. Ask for the specific topic; if that client captured a turning-point snapshot, it may preserve the working state even when the full wording is no longer in the hot context.

A teammate's sessions don't appear. Access and account mode still apply; capture does not make private history universally visible. See Working as a team.

Old history is absent from the normal list. It may have moved to the hosted archive tier. Search the archive when that capability is available.

I turned capture off but old sessions remain. The setting controls future capture. Delete retained transcripts separately when that is what you intend.

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