Use history to recover a decision, review an agent’s work, or find the
right point to continue from. Start with a session you have saved using
agit commit; Everyday commands covers that workflow.
Examples use alice/my-project@first-task. Replace it with your repository
and session branch. To read another person’s published history locally,
first run agit clone owner/repo.
Find a session or turn
agit log alice/my-project --branches
agit log alice/my-project@first-task
agit log alice/my-project@first-task --oneline --limit 10
The repository view lists session branches. The branch view lists saved
turns, commit IDs, messages, and milestones. Use --grep "login" to filter
messages, --since 7d for recent work, or --graph to inspect relationships
between branches.
Read a conversation
agit show alice/my-project@first-task
agit show alice/my-project@first-task#3
agit show alice/my-project@first-task#3.2
The branch head renders the conversation’s current VIEW. #3 selects turn 3;
#3.2 selects event 2 within that turn. Use numbers from your own history.
When AGIT_SESSION is set, agit show @ selects that exact session branch.
Add --max-chars 10000 to ordinary show output when you need longer
message bodies.
Browse history in the terminal
From an interactive terminal in your project, select a session explicitly and open its turn timeline:
AGIT_SESSION=alice/my-project@first-task agit log --tui
Replace the target with your own. The timeline requires log without a
positional target or filtering options; AGIT_SESSION selects the branch
explicitly. The screen might look like this,
with illustrative conversation titles:
alice/my-project @ first-task
#3 Add a regression test
> #2 Explain the proposed change
#1 Find where the request is handled
Use the arrow keys and the key hints at the bottom to inspect a turn or go
back. agit show alice/my-project@first-task --tui opens the conversation
browser for that branch. Run these interactive
screens from a terminal, outside the agent’s tool shell. Use --no-tui for
ordinary text output or --json for machine-readable output.
Read a shared file
Append :path to a saved point to inspect an instruction, memory, or skill file:
agit show alice/my-project@first-task:AGENTS.md
agit show alice/my-project@main:memory/decisions.md
Use a path that exists at the selected point. The selector also works with a tag or commit SHA in place of the branch, so you can inspect the shared files that accompanied an earlier version of a conversation.
Compare saved points
agit diff 'alice/my-project@first-task#2..first-task#5'
Pass both endpoints as a single a..b argument. The right endpoint can omit
the repository when both points belong to the same repo, but must still name
the branch or another saved reference.
The default --turns mode compares recorded turns. Use --view to compare
selected conversation context, or --files for shared files such as
memory/ and skills/:
agit diff 'alice/my-project@first-task#2..first-task#5' --view
agit diff 'alice/my-project@first-task#2..first-task#5' --files
Inspect the context an agent will receive
agit view alice/my-project@first-task
agit view alice/my-project@first-task --json
The VIEW selects the events used to restore the conversation. It includes merge markers and summaries, so you can see what a resumed agent will receive. The underlying evidence log also retains events excluded from the VIEW. Core concepts explains the distinction.
Reference syntax
| Reference | Meaning |
|---|---|
first-task |
Branch head in the repository supplied by AGIT_SESSION |
alice/my-project@first-task |
Explicit repository and branch |
first-task#3 |
Turn 3 |
first-task#-1 |
Latest turn |
first-task#3.2 |
Event 2 inside turn 3 |
first-task#2..#5 |
Turns 2 through 5, for commands accepting a range |
ms-login |
A tag naming a saved point |
A commit SHA or full agit-<40-hex> version ID |
A saved version |
first-task:AGENTS.md |
A file on the selected session branch |
main:memory/decisions.md |
Shared file content on the main line |
@ |
The session branch supplied by AGIT_SESSION |
Selectors combine: alice/my-project@first-task#3.2 identifies an event
without depending on the terminal’s current context. A reference to an old
turn is for inspection; use agit fork to continue work from it.
Search hosted history
agit search "rate limit retry"
agit search "agent:alice/my-project login"
The search guide covers repository scopes, author and date
filters, batch queries, pagination, and incomplete results. Search requires
agit login and queries the Hub’s corpus you have permission
to read. Put filters such as agent:owner/repo, runtime:codex, or
in:prompt inside the query. You can also ask your agent to search using the
MCP integration:
Search our AgentGit history for the retry strategy we used, read the relevant turns, and cite the session before proposing a change.
Export a conversation
agit export alice/my-project@first-task --format markdown -o conversation.md
agit export alice/my-project@first-task#2..#5 --format jsonl
Use jsonl, ir, or markdown for general exports, or a registered runtime’s
native format, including claude-code, codex, opencode, openclaw,
hermes, and workbuddy. See native export and restoration
for the difference between an exported file and an installed runtime session.
The default exports the full evidence log. Add --view-only for only the
context selected by the VIEW, or --redact to mask detected secrets in the
exported output. Review the resulting file before sharing it.
Next, resume or fork the work, or share it with someone else.