transcript-search

STARTER_CHARACTER = 🗃️

Transcript Search

Search the global session memory database for past conversations using hybrid FTS5 + vector retrieval.

When to use

• User asks about something from a previous session or earlier in a long session
• User references a past decision, error, action, or discussion no longer in context
• User asks "what did we do about X", "when did we fix Y", "what error did we get"

Database location

~/.claude/session_memory.db (global, all projects)

Retrieval tool

TR=~/.config/dotfiles/submodules/total-recall
$TR/.venv/bin/python $TR/retrieve.py "QUERY" --db ~/.claude/session_memory.db

Default output is --format context which produces XML-tagged conversation excerpts ready to read directly.

Common flags

Flag	Purpose
--project NAME	Restrict to a specific project
--top-k N	Number of seed matches before expansion (default: 5)
--window N	Context window +/- N around each match (default: 2)
--budget N	Max chunks in final output (default: 20)
--tokens N	Max tokens in final output (default: 6000)
--session ID	Restrict to a specific session_id
--no-tools	Exclude tool_use/tool_result chunks
--no-vectors	FTS5 keyword search only (skip embeddings)
--format json	JSON array output for programmatic use
--roles user,assistant	Filter by role

Search procedure

1. Run retrieve.py with the user's query
2. Read the returned context block
3. If results are too broad, narrow with --project or --session
4. If results are too sparse, increase --top-k or --budget
5. For keyword-exact searches, use --no-vectors to restrict to FTS5

Tips

• The retrieval pipeline uses RRF fusion of keyword + vector search, window expansion, ancestor backtracking, and cross-session semantic links
• Use --no-tools when searching for decisions or discussion (skips noisy tool output)
• Use --format json when you need to process results programmatically