Search past sessions

While DataMind Oda works, it can look back at your earlier chats on this computer: what you asked, what its answers said, and what its steps did. This page covers which chats a look-back can reach, what Oda may read there, and the limits that keep it safe. Searching the chat list yourself is a different feature, covered in Search your chats.

What Oda can look up

Oda looks back through five read-only steps, and chooses them itself when earlier work matters to the task at hand:

• session_search finds earlier chats that match what Oda is looking for and returns the strongest match from each.
• session_event_search searches inside one chat and returns the matching entries.
• session_trace reads the chats around one chat: the chats it belongs to and the chats that belong to it.
• session_event_trace reads how one entry relates to the others: what replaced it, what it replaced, and the entries it cites as its sources.
• session_event_read reads one entry 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.

Which chats a look-back reaches

• The same workspace folder. A look-back reaches only chats that work in the same folder as the chat Oda is working in. Workspaces, files and permissions covers folders and how chats join them.
• An exact match. The folders must match exactly: the same place reached under a different name or path, for example through a link, does not count.
• No folder, no reach. A chat with no workspace folder of its own can look only at itself.
• The asking chat stays out. A search across chats never returns the chat that is asking. When Oda looks inside the chat it is working in, the look stops before the step that is running it, so the step in progress is never treated as earlier history.
• Markers at the boundary. When Oda reads the chats around one chat, parts outside the workspace appear as markers without the hidden chats' names or contents: [outside workspace boundary] for a chat above, and [outside workspace subtree] for one below.

How a search reads and ranks

• A phrase, not a query language. A search is literal text: characters such as quotes, OR, NEAR and * are ordinary characters, never commands.
• Case does not matter. plan and Plan find the same entries.
• Whole words match. Oda matches words, not fragments of them: a search for AI does not find it inside another word such as BRAID.
• Results are ranked. Chats with more matching places come first, then the shorter matching entries, then by where they sit in the record.
• Oda can narrow. A look-back can be narrowed to a period, to particular chats or a chat's family, to the kind of entry to look for, and to which layer of the record to read: what still stands, what later edits replaced, or entries kept only for Oda's own use.

The limits that keep it safe

• Read-only. The five steps only read. Looking through earlier chats never changes, moves or deletes anything.
• One bounded list. A search returns at most 100 matching chats by default, and there is no second page: Oda cannot page through what it found. When matches are left behind, the result ends with Result cap reached. Narrow the query or add filters to find additional matches., and Oda looks again with a narrower search.
• Nothing half-shown. If the history changes while a look-back is reading it, Oda repeats the complete search instead of mixing old and new parts; the result then reads session history changed while paging; retry the complete search call.
• Some setups switch search off. An installation can turn phrase searches off; Oda then reports session search is disabled in this deployment. The steps that read a chat or an entry directly keep working, and reading, exporting and opening chats are unaffected.
• Names and empty results. Each hit names the chat it found and shows a short piece of the matching text. A search that finds nothing is still a result: it reads No prior session matches found., and a search inside one chat reads No prior event matches found.

When a look-back cannot finish

Most look-backs end with results. When one cannot finish, Oda reports why rather than guessing:

• 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 target is outside the caller workspace: the chat Oda tried to read works in a different folder. Oda refuses it, and nothing is changed.
• cross-session search is unavailable because the caller session has no workspace: this chat has no folder of its own, so it can read only itself. Continue in a chat that belongs to a workspace folder.

Questions, answered

When does Oda look back at earlier chats?

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. Each look-back appears in the chat as a card while it runs.

What can Oda read from an earlier chat?

The record of what happened in it: your messages, Oda's answers, the steps Oda took with their results, and the notes it keeps for itself. Oda reads only within the chats a look-back can reach, and only in the ways listed above; the records themselves live on your computer, as Session files on your computer explains.

How far back can Oda look?

Across every earlier chat on this computer that works in the same folder as the chat Oda is in. The look-back is not limited to recent chats.

Can Oda read chats from a different folder?

No. A look-back reaches only chats whose folder matches the chat's folder exactly, and a chat outside it is refused; when Oda reads the chats around one chat, the outside parts appear as markers without names. To work with another folder's chats, continue in a chat that belongs to that folder.

Does the look-back include the step Oda is running right now?

No. A search across chats never returns the asking chat, and a look inside it stops before the step that is running the look-back. Work in progress is never treated as earlier history.

Does Oda change anything when it looks back?

No. All five steps are read-only: nothing is edited, moved or deleted, and the chats Oda reads through stay exactly as they were.

Can Oda read a whole earlier chat at once?

No. Oda reads through the five steps: it searches across chats, searches inside one chat, follows the chats around one chat, traces a single entry's relations, and opens single entries in full. There is no step that copies a whole chat in one go.

Does the look-back include the helper chats Oda started?

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.

Why did a search not find a word I know is in a chat?

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.