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While it works, DataMind Oda can look things up in your earlier chats on this computer: what you asked, what Oda answered and what its steps did. This page covers what Oda can look through, where each lookup stops, and what its results and refusals look like; Chat with Oda covers the conversation itself, and Chat history storage and search covers how the history is kept.
Oda chooses these lookups by itself when earlier work matters, for example to find how something was done before or which work belongs together, and you can also ask it to look something up in your earlier chats. It looks in five ways, each a read-only step:
Search across chats (session_search). Oda looks for a phrase in the chats it may read and returns the strongest match from each, with the chat's name and a short piece of the matching text.
Search inside one chat (session_event_search). Oda looks for a phrase in one chat and returns the matching entries.
Read the chats around one chat (session_trace). Oda reads the chain of chats a chat belongs to, and the chats that belong to it.
Trace one entry (session_event_trace). Oda reads how a single recorded entry relates to the others: what replaced it, what it replaced, and the entries it cites as its sources.
Read one entry in full (session_event_read). Oda opens a single entry of a chat's record in full, as it was saved, with optional summaries of the entries just before and after it.
Each step appears in the chat as a card, such as Search prior sessions, Search session events, or a trace or read card naming its target. Tool catalog and session events lists these steps beside Oda's other tools.
The steps only read: looking through earlier chats never changes, moves or deletes anything. There is no step that copies a whole chat in one go.
What Oda reads is the record of a chat: your messages, Oda's answers, the steps it took with their results, and the notes it keeps for itself. The records live on your computer, as Session logs on your computer explains.
To search your chats yourself, see Search your chats.
[outside workspace boundary] for a chat above the one being read, [outside workspace subtree] for one below it, and [outside workspace] in a parent's place. Their names and contents never appear.OR, NEAR and * are ordinary characters, so a search for OR finds the word OR.plan and Plan find the same entries.AI does not find it inside another word such as BRAID.Result cap reached.No prior session matches found. for a search across chats, or No prior event matches found. for a search inside one chat.live when the chat is open in this run of Oda, persisted when it was kept from an earlier one, and both words together when both hold. unavailable means it cannot be read at the moment.untitled; when the name cannot be read at all, it adds the reason, as in untitled (title unavailable: <code>).Most lookups end with results. When one cannot finish, Oda reports why in one of these lines:
session was not found: the chat Oda went to read has no record in the history on this computer. Check that the chat is still in your sidebar, then ask again.session search is disabled in this deployment: phrase searches are switched off for this installation. The other lookups still work, because they read the record directly rather than searching it. If you need searches, ask your DataMind OS administrator.session history changed while paging; retry the complete search call: the chat changed while Oda was reading it, so the search runs again from the start instead of mixing old and new parts. Ask again if it does not.cross-session search is unavailable because the caller session has no workspace: this chat has no workspace folder, so it can read only itself. Continue in a chat that belongs to a workspace folder.current-session search requires an active step boundary: Oda could not anchor a look inside the current chat to a step. Ask again in a new message, and keep the message for your administrator if it returns.session target is outside the caller workspace: the chat Oda tried to read is outside this chat's workspace folder, so Oda refuses it. Nothing is changed.session query operation failed: something else went wrong, and the full reason was kept for Oda's log files instead of the chat. Try again; if it repeats, keep the message for your administrator.A lookup also ends when you stop the turn: nothing keeps running behind it.
Oda takes these steps on its own when earlier work matters to the task, for example to find how something was done before or which work belongs together. You can also ask it to look something up. Each lookup appears in the chat as a card while it runs.
Only chats in the same workspace folder as the chat it is working in. The folders must match exactly: two paths that point to the same place but are written differently do not share access, and a chat with no workspace folder can look only at itself. See Workspaces, files and permissions.
A search across chats never returns the chat that is asking. When Oda searches inside the asking chat itself, the search stops before the step that is running it, so the lookup never reads the step that started it.
[outside workspace boundary] mean in a result?A chat outside the workspace appeared while Oda read a chain of chats, so Oda shows a marker in its place: [outside workspace boundary] for a chat above the one being read, [outside workspace subtree] for one below it, and [outside workspace] in a parent's place. Their names and contents never appear.
OR or *?No. Oda reads a search as literal text: quotes, OR, NEAR and * are ordinary characters, so a search for the word OR finds the word OR.
Lookups return one bounded list with no second page. When more matches exist than the limit allows, Oda keeps the strongest ones and the result ends with Result cap reached. Ask for something narrower, for example name a chat or a period, and try again.
That message is session search is disabled in this deployment: phrase searches are switched off for this installation. The lookups that read a chat or an entry directly still work. If you need searches, ask your DataMind OS administrator.
That message is cross-session search is unavailable because the caller session has no workspace: the chat has no workspace folder of its own, so it can read only itself. Continue in a chat that belongs to a workspace folder.
No. The sidebar search is yours: it finds chats by name and by what is inside them, and you open a chat from its results (Search your chats). The lookups on this page are Oda's own; they run while it works, and they stay inside its workspace.
No. All five steps are read-only: nothing is edited, moved or deleted, and the chats Oda reads through stay exactly as they were.
Yes, helper chats are chats too. A helper that works in the same folder is in reach like any other chat, and the chats around one chat include the ones that belong to it. Delegating work to subagents covers helpers.
Oda matches whole words as a phrase, and ignores case: a search for AI does not match inside another word such as BRAID. Try the words as they stand in the chat, or a shorter phrase.