Search agent conversations
Find the Claude Code or Codex conversation where you discussed it, with the matching line highlighted. The index stays on your Mac.
The conversation you are thinking of is easier to find by the error message than by the project. Search your coding-agent chats by a word you remember — a command, an exception, a phrase — and see which conversation it was in, best match first. Claude Code conversations are searched from the start; Codex conversations join once you allow PrivateGoat to read coding-agent histories.
How to use it
- Open Quick Find with ⌃⌥K and narrow it to Chats with ⌘5.
- Type the word you remember. Results are conversations, best match first (recent messages get a lift), with the matching line highlighted.
- Press Return to open the conversation in Chats at the matching message, or ⌘Return to resume it in Terminal.
To step through every hit of a word, one chat after another, search inside the Chats place instead: Return goes to the next hit there.
Coding agents can search the same index with the sessions_search tool — see
MCP tools reference.
What is indexed
Only your prompts, the agent's replies and the commands it ran. Tool output is never indexed. The index is built from the session files already on the Mac and stays there.
Settings
There is no per-source switch. The two settings that touch this data are elsewhere:
| Setting | Where | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Quick Find anywhere | Settings → General → Global shortcuts | The chord that opens the search |
| Read coding-agent histories on this Mac | Settings → Coding agents → Chats | Needed for Codex conversations and for the Chats place; Claude Code's search works without it |
| Claude sessions | Settings → Repositories (a caption under the list, no row of its own) | Sessions are read from ~/.claude wherever they ran, whatever is ticked |
What is stored
| Item | Where |
|---|---|
| The search index | ~/Library/Application Support/Sonavia/claude-search.sqlite3 |
| Source session files | ~/.claude/projects/<project>/<session>.jsonl and ~/.codex/sessions, read only |
| The session cache | ~/Library/Application Support/Sonavia/HarnessSessions.json |
The source session files are never modified.
What leaves your Mac
Nothing. The index and the conversation reader are local, and searching them makes no network request.
When it is off or fails
- A conversation whose history file is gone: the app can still show the facts it cached, but not the conversation.
- An unreadable or corrupt session: it is skipped rather than failing the scan.
- No match: Quick Find says so.
- A conversation in a repository you never ticked: it is still found; sessions are read wherever they ran.
- Reading coding-agent histories is off: Claude Code conversations are still found; Codex files are not read.
- No Chats place on this Mac: Return resumes the conversation in Terminal.
- Terminal cannot take the resume file: the conversation does not open. Copy Resume Command in the conversation preview still gives you the command.
Related
- Quick Find — the search that hosts the Chats scope.
- Chats — every conversation in one place, with search that steps hit by hit.
- Agent sessions under tickets — the same sessions, filed by ticket.
- Timeline — agent sessions beside the rest of your day.