Claude Session Search

What it does

When your agent uses it

• Finding where you discussed a topic in earlier Claude Code sessions
• Working out when you last worked on a feature or bug
• Locating the session behind a specific commit or branch
• Searching history by project name when you only remember the repo

Example prompts

• “Find where I discussed the Stripe webhook retry logic.”
• “Search my sessions for work on the dark mode toggle and tell me when it happened.”
• “Tell me when I last worked on the payments branch.”

Requirements

• The claude-view server running on localhost (npx claude-view)
• The claude-view MCP server connected
• Pre-approved tools (allowed-tools): mcp__claude-view__search_sessions, mcp__claude-view__list_sessions, mcp__claude-view__get_session

Workflow steps

5 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

1. 1Search sessions. Call mcpclaude-viewsearch_sessions with the user's query as the q parameter.
2. 2If results are sparse, try mcpclaude-viewlist_sessions with the q filter parameter and limit: 20 to catch sessions matched by metadata…
3. 3For the most relevant results (top 3-5), call mcpclaude-viewget_session to get full details including commits and summary.
4. 4Present results
5. 5If no results found, suggest alternative search terms or broader filters. Mention that search covers session summaries, commit messages…

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit ff3cdd1. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves these tools, so the agent can use them without asking each time:

  • mcp__claude-view__search_sessions
  • mcp__claude-view__list_sessions
  • mcp__claude-view__get_session

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  Shell commands in SKILL.md call:

  • npx

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  No URLs in SKILL.md. Its commands use npx, which can reach the network depending on how they are called.

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Claude Session Search loads about 3k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 39 tokens; SKILL.md has 1,037 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~39

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~3k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from tombelieber/claude-view at commit ff3cdd1, republished under its MIT licence (© tombelieber). 1,037 words, ~2,980 tokens.

name

search

description

Use when the user wants to find something across their Claude Code history — e.g. 'find where I discussed X', 'search for Y', 'when did I work on Z'

allowed-tools

mcp__claude-view__search_sessions, mcp__claude-view__list_sessions, mcp__claude-view__get_session

## Search Results — "[query]"

**Found:** N sessions

### Top Matches
1. **[project] / [branch]** — [date]
   [summary or relevant snippet]
   Session: [session_id] | Duration: Xm | Commits: N

2. **[project] / [branch]** — [date]
   [summary or relevant snippet]
   Session: [session_id] | Duration: Xm | Commits: N

© tombelieber, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 1 other file in packages/plugin/skills/search of tombelieber/claude-view.

• SKILL.md
• SKILL.md.tmpl

Open the folder on GitHubat commit ff3cdd1