recap

recap: re-entry radar for Claude Code sessions

One command, full overview of recent sessions across every project on this machine. Built for the post-reboot moment: which projects, what was each session about, and the exact command to jump back in.

How to run it

Personal or project install (the skill directory is on disk next to this file):

python3 ~/.claude/skills/recap/recap.py [flags]

Plugin install (Claude Code exports the plugin root):

python3 "$CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT/skills/recap/recap.py" [flags]

Nothing to install beyond Python 3 (stdlib only, no third-party packages).

Flag	Meaning
(none)	last 15 sessions, newest first, instant, no network
--since 7d	only sessions active in the window (30m, 24h, 7d, 2w)
--project foo	filter by substring of the absolute project path; separators are interchangeable (my_app, my-app, work/my_app)
--limit N	max rows (default 15)
--json	machine-readable output with full session ids and resume commands
--smart	real one-sentence summaries via ONE claude -p haiku call (network, ~10s)
--pick	choose a row interactively, then cd + claude -r into it directly
--open	open EVERY listed session in its own new terminal tab and resume it there (macOS)
--claude-flags "..."	extra flags for each resumed claude (e.g. "--chrome --dangerously-skip-permissions"); also shown in the printed resume lines and --json
--terminal auto|iTerm2|Terminal	which app --open drives (default: iTerm2 when installed)
--yes / -y	skip the --open confirmation prompt (required when stdin is not a TTY)
--dry-run	with --open: print the tabs and commands, open nothing
--color	force ANSI colors when output is piped (e.g. inside Claude Code)
--plain	no ANSI at all (also honors NO_COLOR / FORCE_COLOR env)

Usage examples

# after a reboot: what was I doing?
python3 ~/.claude/skills/recap/recap.py

# everything in one repo this week
python3 ~/.claude/skills/recap/recap.py --since 7d --project my-repo

# jump straight back into a session
python3 ~/.claude/skills/recap/recap.py --pick

# re-open yesterday's whole working set in terminal tabs, browser enabled, no permission prompts
python3 ~/.claude/skills/recap/recap.py --since 24h --limit 12 \
  --open --yes --claude-flags "--chrome --dangerously-skip-permissions"

# preview first, open nothing
python3 ~/.claude/skills/recap/recap.py --open --dry-run

# feed into other tooling
python3 ~/.claude/skills/recap/recap.py --json --limit 50

The --open flag

Restores a whole working set at once. It opens one new tab per listed session and types the resume command into it. Rules:

• The session recap itself runs in is skipped automatically (matched on CLAUDE_CODE_SESSION_ID), so it never re-opens itself.
• Sessions whose project directory no longer exists are skipped and reported, never opened.
• Scope comes from the normal filters, so --limit / --since / --project decide exactly which tabs appear. Check with --dry-run before committing.
• Without --yes it asks for confirmation; with piped stdin (Claude Code's Bash tool) it refuses to open unless --yes is passed.
• --claude-flags is passed through verbatim to every tab. --dangerously-skip-permissions disables all permission checks in each opened session; the script prints a warning before doing it.
• Tab opening drives iTerm2 or Terminal through osascript, so it is macOS-only. On other platforms --open exits with a clear message; --open --dry-run still prints the commands so they can be pasted anywhere.

When Claude runs this skill

Run the script with Bash, ALWAYS with --color (tool output is piped, auto-detection would strip the colors; Claude Code renders ANSI). Add --since/--project if the user narrowed the question, then relay the table. Quote the resume command (cd <path> && claude -r <id>) for any session the user wants to re-enter. Only add --smart if the user explicitly asks for better summaries; it makes a network call.

Use --open only when the user explicitly asks to re-open or resume the sessions. Because the Bash tool pipes stdin, --open needs --yes; treat the user's request as the confirmation, and set the scope with --limit/--since so no unwanted session gets a tab. Pass --claude-flags only with flags the user named; state the permission-bypass warning in your reply whenever --dangerously-skip-permissions is among them.

Data sources and guarantees

• ~/.claude/history.jsonl is the fast index (prompt text, timestamp, project path, session id). CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR is honored when set.
• ~/.claude/projects/<encoded>/<session>.jsonl transcripts are parsed only for the displayed rows (title, branch, model, turn count). Project paths always come from the cwd/project fields, never decoded from folder names (that encoding is lossy). Because claude -r only finds a session from the directory it started in, recap resolves the path to the first recorded cwd whose encoding matches the transcript's folder, so a mid-session cd never produces an unresumable command; a session with no cwd at all borrows one from a sibling transcript.
• Summary preference: Claude Code's own ai-title line, else the first real user prompt, else (no prompt).
• --smart privacy: the only path that leaves the machine. It shells out to the local claude CLI once and sends, for the listed sessions only, each session's 8-character id prefix, its title (first 150 characters), and its first user prompt (first 300 characters). No file bodies, no transcript contents, no other sessions. If claude is not on PATH, --smart is skipped with a warning and the offline summaries are used.
• Turn count groups assistant streaming chunks by message id and is labeled approximate.
• Broken or partial JSONL lines are skipped, never fatal. Times shown in the local timezone.
• Display: day-grouped timeline (Today green, Yesterday amber), 14-day activity sparkline in the header, per-project colored dot (stable hash), four-level gray hierarchy with one accent color, per-session resume line indented with spaces only (safe to copy), and a small footer with a GitHub-star CTA and author link (clickable OSC 8 hyperlinks on supporting terminals). Falls back to plain text when piped or when NO_COLOR is set.
• Read-only: the tool never writes or deletes anything. It sees only sessions still on disk (Claude Code prunes old ones). --open and --pick are the only side-effecting paths: --open drives iTerm2/Terminal via osascript, --pick execs claude -r in the chosen directory. Neither writes or touches session data.

Optional shell alias

alias recap='python3 ~/.claude/skills/recap/recap.py'