siftd

siftd

You've been using Claude Code, Aider, Gemini CLI, or Codex for months. Each session produces a log file — decisions made, problems solved, dead ends explored. When the session ends, that knowledge sits in a directory you'll never open.

siftd makes it searchable.

Install

pip install siftd

You have sessions everywhere

Run your first ingest to see what's already there:

siftd ingest

==================================================
SUMMARY
==================================================
Files found:    523
Files ingested: 448
Files replaced: 0
Files skipped:  75

Conversations: 448
Prompts:       6,241
Responses:     7,893
Tool calls:    52,107

--- By Harness ---

claude_code:
  conversations: 312
  prompts: 4,102
  responses: 5,210
  tool_calls: 41,893

aider:
  conversations: 89
  prompts: 1,456
  responses: 1,834
  tool_calls: 7,241

gemini_cli:
  conversations: 47
  prompts: 683
  responses: 849
  tool_calls: 2,973

siftd found 448 conversations you've had over the past few months. Each one captured prompts, responses, tool calls, file edits, shell commands — structured and queryable.

See what accumulated:

siftd db stats

Database: /home/you/.local/share/siftd/siftd.db
Size: 42380.2 KB

--- Counts ---
  Conversations: 448
  Prompts: 6,241
  Responses: 7,893
  Tool calls: 52,107
  Harnesses: 3
  Workspaces: 23
  Tools: 18
  Models: 5
  Ingested files: 448

--- Workspaces (top 10) ---
  myproject: 89 conversations (last 2025-01-15 14:32)
  auth-service: 45 conversations (last 2025-01-14 16:45)
  ...

Browse recent work:

siftd query

01JGK3M2P4Q5  2025-01-15 14:32  myproject      claude-opus-4-5   12p/34r  18.2k tok  $0.2847
01JGK2N1R3S4  2025-01-15 10:17  auth-service   claude-opus-4-5   8p/21r   12.5k tok  $0.1923
01JGK1P0Q2R3  2025-01-14 16:45  myproject      claude-sonnet-4   5p/12r   6.3k tok   $0.0412
...

Each row is a conversation. The ID prefix is enough to reference it — 01JGK3 will match 01JGK3M2P4Q5.

Look at a specific conversation:

siftd query 01JGK3

This shows the full exchange: every prompt you typed, every response, every tool call with its inputs and outputs.

You remember working on something

A week ago you solved a tricky auth problem. You don't remember which project or what you called it. You just remember the shape of the problem.

Search for it:

siftd search "token refresh"

01JGK3M2P4Q5  2025-01-15 14:32  myproject        claude-opus-4-5   12p/34r
01JFXN2R1K4M  2024-12-03 09:15  auth-service     claude-opus-4-5   8p/19r

Found two conversations mentioning "token refresh". Without embeddings installed, this uses keyword matching (FTS5). But maybe you used different words — "session expiry", "credential renewal". Keyword search won't find those.

Install the embedding extra to upgrade siftd search to hybrid mode — same command, better results:

pip install siftd[embed]
siftd search --index    # build embeddings (runs locally, no API calls)

Now the same command finds by meaning:

siftd search "handling expired credentials"

Results for: handling expired credentials

  01JGK3M2P4Q5  0.847  [RESPONSE]  2025-01-15  myproject
    The token refresh uses a sliding window approach — store the refresh token in httpOnly cookie, check expiry on each request...

  01JFXN2R1K4M  0.812  [RESPONSE]  2024-12-03  auth-service
    For credential renewal, we went with a background refresh 30 seconds before expiry rather than waiting for a 401...

The second result is from a different project, using different words, but siftd found it because the meaning matched.

Narrow results by workspace or time:

siftd search -w myproject "auth"           # only myproject
siftd search --since 2025-01-01 "testing"  # recent conversations
siftd search -n 20 "error handling"        # more results

See the surrounding context:

siftd search --context 2 "token refresh"   # show 2 exchanges before/after
siftd search --thread "architecture"       # expand top hits into full threads

This is useful — you'll need it again

You found the auth conversation. It's exactly the pattern you need. Tag it so you can find it instantly next time:

siftd tag 01JGK3 decision:auth

Tags are freeform. Use prefixes to create namespaces:

siftd tag 01JGK3 decision:auth      # architectural decisions
siftd tag 01JFXN research:oauth     # research/exploration
siftd tag 01JGK1 pattern:testing    # reusable patterns

Retrieve tagged conversations:

siftd query -l decision:auth              # exact tag
siftd query -l decision:                  # all decision:* tags
siftd search -l research: "authentication" # search within tagged

List your tags:

siftd tags