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:

1. Scans

   ~/.claude/file-history/

   to build file→session index
2. Cross-references with

   ~/.claude/projects/

   for session metadata
3. Reads and synthesizes conversation content
4. Returns structured context with full session IDs