session-logs

Search your complete conversation history stored in session JSONL files. Use this when a user references older/parent conversations or asks what was said before.

Trigger

Use this skill when the user asks about prior chats, parent conversations, or historical context that isn't in memory files.

Location

Session logs live at:

~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/sessions/

(use the

agent=<id>

value from the system prompt Runtime line).

• sessions.json

  - Index mapping session keys to session IDs

• <session-id>.jsonl

  - Full conversation transcript per session

Structure

Each

.jsonl

file contains messages with:

• type

  : "session" (metadata) or "message"

• timestamp

  : ISO timestamp

• message.role

  : "user", "assistant", or "toolResult"

• message.content[]

  : Text, thinking, or tool calls (filter

  type=="text"

  for human-readable content)

• message.usage.cost.total

  : Cost per response

Common Queries

List all sessions by date and size

for f in ~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/sessions/*.jsonl; do
  date=$(head -1 "$f" | jq -r '.timestamp' | cut -dT -f1)
  size=$(ls -lh "$f" | awk '{print $5}')
  echo "$date $size $(basename $f)"
done | sort -r

Find sessions from a specific day

for f in ~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/sessions/*.jsonl; do
  head -1 "$f" | jq -r '.timestamp' | grep -q "2026-01-06" && echo "$f"
done

Extract user messages from a session

jq -r 'select(.message.role == "user") | .message.content[]? | select(.type == "text") | .text' <session>.jsonl

Search for keyword in assistant responses

jq -r 'select(.message.role == "assistant") | .message.content[]? | select(.type == "text") | .text' <session>.jsonl | rg -i "keyword"

Get total cost for a session

jq -s '[.[] | .message.usage.cost.total // 0] | add' <session>.jsonl

Daily cost summary

for f in ~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/sessions/*.jsonl; do
  date=$(head -1 "$f" | jq -r '.timestamp' | cut -dT -f1)
  cost=$(jq -s '[.[] | .message.usage.cost.total // 0] | add' "$f")
  echo "$date $cost"
done | awk '{a[$1]+=$2} END {for(d in a) print d, "$"a[d]}' | sort -r

Count messages and tokens in a session

jq -s '{
  messages: length,
  user: [.[] | select(.message.role == "user")] | length,
  assistant: [.[] | select(.message.role == "assistant")] | length,
  first: .[0].timestamp,
  last: .[-1].timestamp
}' <session>.jsonl

Tool usage breakdown

jq -r '.message.content[]? | select(.type == "toolCall") | .name' <session>.jsonl | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn

Search across ALL sessions for a phrase

rg -l "phrase" ~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/sessions/*.jsonl

Tips

• Sessions are append-only JSONL (one JSON object per line)
• Large sessions can be several MB - use

  head

  /

  tail

  for sampling
• The

  sessions.json

  index maps chat providers (discord, whatsapp, etc.) to session IDs
• Deleted sessions have

  .deleted.<timestamp>

  suffix

Fast text-only hint (low noise)

jq -r 'select(.type=="message") | .message.content[]? | select(.type=="text") | .text' ~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/sessions/<id>.jsonl | rg 'keyword'