claude-grep

Search your Claude Code conversation history — find any past session by what was said, then jump straight back into it. grep + fzf for everything Claude Code has ever told you.

claude-grep is a tiny CLI (run with the ccfind command) that searches the text of every Claude Code conversation stored under ~/.claude/projects/, and lets you resume any of them with a single keypress.

Demo

Why

• claude --resume only matches a session's title (its first prompt) — not what was actually discussed inside it.
• Your history is also fragmented per working directory, so each pwd shows a different partial list and older work is hard to find and continue.

claude-grep searches the full transcript body across every project, so you can find a conversation by something that came up halfway through it — and drop right back into it.

Install

Homebrew (recommended)

brew install coolcorexix/tap/claude-grep

Then run ccfind. (You'll also need Anthropic's claude CLI on your PATH.)

Nix

nix run github:coolcorexix/claude-grep

Or nix profile install github:coolcorexix/claude-grep, or add it to your flake. (fzf, ripgrep, and Python are bundled in.)

Manual

Requirements: fzf ≥ 0.38, ripgrep, Python 3.8+, and the claude CLI on your PATH.

# macOS dependencies
brew install fzf ripgrep

git clone https://github.com/coolcorexix/claude-grep
ln -sf "$PWD/claude-grep/ccfind" ~/.local/bin/ccfind   # ensure ~/.local/bin is on PATH

Then run ccfind. (Or just copy the ccfind script anywhere on your PATH.)

Usage

ccfind

• Type a phrase — results refresh live as you type.
• ↑/↓ move · Enter resumes the selected conversation · Esc quits.
• Each row shows the matched snippet (phrase highlighted), the conversation's working directory (dimmed), and the message timestamp (right-aligned). The preview pane shows the session id, directory, and time.

How it works

• Fast: ripgrep narrows thousands of transcripts to candidates in milliseconds; only those files are parsed in Python for clean, highlighted snippets. No index, nothing running in the background.
• Searches real content: your prompts, Claude's replies, and tool results — matches inside a tool call (e.g. a shell command) still surface via a raw fallback.
• Sub-agent aware: sub-agent transcripts (<project>/<PARENT-UUID>/subagents/agent-*.jsonl) can't be resumed directly, so claude-grep resolves them to their parent session and resumes that — using the parent's working directory, so it works even if the sub-agent ran in a now-deleted git worktree.
• Deduped: one row per resumable conversation, newest first.

Multi-agent: Claude Code · OpenCode · Hermes

If you also use OpenCode or Hermes, ccfind searches their conversation history alongside Claude Code's — from the same UI. It auto-detects which agents are installed and tags each row by source:

• [c] Claude Code — JSONL transcripts under ~/.claude/projects/
• [h] Hermes — sessions under ~/.hermes/sessions/ and ~/.hermes/profiles/<name>/sessions/
• [o] OpenCode — the SQLite db at ~/.local/share/opencode/opencode.db

Press Enter on any row and ccfind routes to the right agent's resume command (claude --resume / hermes --resume / opencode --session). Sub-agent sessions (Claude or OpenCode) auto-resolve to their resumable parent.

ccfind --sources               # see which agents are detected
ccfind --source claude         # search only one
ccfind --source claude,hermes  # or a subset

Branch any session at any message (prompt tree)

Like git checkout from a commit — but for AI conversations. In the search UI, hit Ctrl-B instead of Enter on any row to:

1. open a picker of all user messages in that session,
2. pick one as your checkpoint,
3. ccfind creates a new Claude Code session with the conversation rewound to that point — and resumes you into it.

The forked session is a first-class Claude session (works with claude --resume, appears in your history) and is tagged with the same forkedFrom: {sessionId, messageUuid} metadata that Claude's own /btw command writes — fully compatible with Claude's native fork format.

Useful when:

• you went down a wrong rabbit hole and want to try a different direction from a specific message,
• a session covered multiple tickets and you want each one as its own clean thread,
• you want to keep the original session intact while exploring an alternative path.

MVP supports Claude Code only; OpenCode and Hermes branching coming next.

FAQ

How do I search my Claude Code conversation history?
Run claude-grep (the ccfind command) and type any phrase. It searches across every transcript in ~/.claude/projects/ and lets you resume the matching session.

Can I search past Claude Code sessions by content instead of just the title?
Yes — that's the whole point. claude --resume only matches the session title / first prompt; claude-grep searches the entire transcript body.

How do I find and reopen an old Claude Code conversation?
Search for something you remember discussing, select the result, and press Enter. claude-grep cds into that project and runs claude --resume on the correct session.

Where does Claude Code store its conversations?
As JSONL transcripts under ~/.claude/projects/<project>/<session-id>.jsonl (sub-agent sessions live in a subagents/ subfolder). claude-grep reads these directly — no export or setup needed.

Does it work with sub-agent sessions?
Yes. Sub-agent transcripts aren't resumable on their own, so claude-grep automatically resolves them to the resumable parent session.

claude-grep vs. claude --resume

Limitations

• The right-aligned timestamp is sized to the terminal width at search time; resizing the terminal corrects on the next keystroke.
• Results are capped at the 80 most-recent matches per search to stay responsive.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.