File History Context

Use this for FILE-SPECIFIC history queries. For general semantic search across all conversations, use episodic-memory instead.

When to Use This Skill

USE file-history when:

Looking for sessions that edited a specific file
Understanding why code was written a certain way
User says "what did we do with [filename]"
User asks about past changes to a component/module
Refactoring and need to understand original intent
Code seems unusual and you want the backstory

DON'T use this when:

General conceptual questions across all projects → use episodic-memory
No specific file/feature in mind → use episodic-memory
Looking for patterns across unrelated conversations → use episodic-memory

How to Use

Dispatch the history-context agent:

Task tool:
  description: "Find history for [file/feature]"
  prompt: "Find context for [specific file or feature]. Focus on [decisions/implementation/rationale]."
  subagent_type: "history-context"

Example prompts:

"Find context for src/components/AuthForm.tsx"
"What sessions worked on the caching implementation?"
"Get history for the payment processing feature"

What You Get Back

The agent will return:

Summary of what was done and why
Key decisions and rationale
Implementation notes
Full session IDs (UUIDs) for reference
Session file paths for direct access

Why This Works Better Than episodic-memory for Files

Aspect	file-history	episodic-memory
Accuracy	Uses Claude's file-history tracking	Semantic search (fuzzy)
Speed	Indexed, instant	Searches full conversations
File mapping	Knows exactly which sessions edited which files	Guesses from content
Git dependency	None	None
Project scope	Per-project	Cross-project

Technical Details

Uses ~/.claude/commands/claude-history.py which:

Scans ~/.claude/file-history/ to build file→session index
Cross-references with ~/.claude/projects/ for session metadata
Reads and synthesizes conversation content
Returns structured context with full session IDs

file-history