Never Lose a Claude Code Conversation Again: Auto-Saving Your AI Sessions

October 14, 2025 • tech , automation

Here’s a problem I bet you’ve had: You’re in the middle of an epic Claude Code session. You’ve just built something amazing together - hooks, scripts, maybe even a whole feature. Then you exit the session, come back later, and… poof. That entire conversation? Gone. Or buried somewhere in Claude’s temp files where you’ll never find it again.

Yeah, that was driving me nuts too.

So I did what any reasonable developer would do: I built a system to auto-save every single conversation, make them searchable, and never lose context again.

Update: This is now available as a Claude Code plugin! Install with /plugin marketplace add https://github.com/sirkitree/claude-conversation-saver then restart Claude Code.

The Problem: Conversations Are Ephemeral

Claude Code stores your active session in a temporary JSONL file deep in ~/.claude/projects/. Great for the current session, but the moment that session truly ends (not just paused - actually terminated), that context is gone forever.

And here’s the kicker: if you’re like me and you use the “resume session” feature constantly, your sessions can last for days. When they finally do end, you lose all that valuable context - the debugging journey, the architectural decisions, the “why did we do it this way” moments.

Not cool.

The Solution: Hooks + Automation + Search

Claude Code has this killer feature called hooks - shell scripts that automatically run when certain events happen. One of those events is SessionEnd, which fires when a session actually terminates (not when you exit and resume, but when it properly ends).

Perfect. Let’s build on that.

What I Built

The system has three main components:

Auto-save hook - Captures conversations when sessions end
Conversation parser - Converts raw JSONL to readable markdown
Search tool - Makes finding old conversations trivial

The Auto-Save Hook

Here’s the magic. When a Claude Code session ends, this hook automatically:

Creates a timestamped copy of the raw conversation (JSONL format)
Parses it into human-readable markdown
Saves both versions to ~/.claude/conversation-logs/
Preserves all the metadata (session ID, timestamps, model info)

The hook lives at ~/.claude/hooks/session-end.sh:

#!/bin/bash
LOG_DIR="$HOME/.claude/conversation-logs"
mkdir -p "$LOG_DIR"

TIMESTAMP=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S")
HOOK_DATA=$(cat)

# Save session metadata
echo "$HOOK_DATA" > "$LOG_DIR/session_$TIMESTAMP.json"

# Extract and copy the full transcript
TRANSCRIPT_PATH=$(echo "$HOOK_DATA" | jq -r '.transcript_path // empty')
SESSION_ID=$(echo "$HOOK_DATA" | jq -r '.session_id // "unknown"')

if [ -n "$TRANSCRIPT_PATH" ] && [ -f "$TRANSCRIPT_PATH" ]; then
    # Copy raw JSONL
    cp "$TRANSCRIPT_PATH" "$LOG_DIR/conversation_$TIMESTAMP.jsonl"

    # Parse to markdown if parser available
    if command -v python3 &> /dev/null; then
        python3 "$HOME/.claude/hooks/parse-conversation.py" \
            "$LOG_DIR/conversation_$TIMESTAMP.jsonl" \
            "$LOG_DIR/conversation_$TIMESTAMP.md" \
            "$SESSION_ID"
    fi
fi

The Conversation Parser

The Python parser (~/.claude/hooks/parse-conversation.py) does the heavy lifting:

Parses the JSONL format Claude uses internally
Extracts user messages and assistant responses
Handles tool calls and results
Formats everything as clean, readable markdown
Preserves code blocks and formatting

The output is a beautifully formatted markdown file that reads like a natural conversation transcript.

The Search Tool

Once you’ve got a bunch of saved conversations, you need to find stuff. Enter the search script (~/.claude/scripts/search-conversations.sh):

# List all saved conversations
~/.claude/scripts/search-conversations.sh --list

# Show recent conversations
~/.claude/scripts/search-conversations.sh --recent 5

# Search for a specific term
~/.claude/scripts/search-conversations.sh "hooks"

# Search with more context
~/.claude/scripts/search-conversations.sh "git commit" --context 5

It uses good old grep under the hood but wraps it in a friendly interface that:

Shows you which conversation the match is from
Provides context lines around matches
Lists file sizes and timestamps
Makes it trivial to find that one conversation where you solved that weird bug

How to Set This Up

The Easy Way: Install as a Plugin

Claude Code now supports plugins! Install in two simple steps:

Step 1: Add the marketplace:

/plugin marketplace add https://github.com/sirkitree/claude-conversation-saver

Step 2: Restart Claude Code to load the plugin.

That’s it! The plugin automatically:

Installs the SessionEnd hook
Sets up all the scripts
Adds slash commands: /convo-search, /convo-list, /convo-recent

Prerequisites: Make sure you have jq and python3 installed first:

# Termux
pkg install jq python -y

# macOS
brew install jq python3

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt install jq python3

Once installed, use the convenient slash commands:

/convo-search hooks - Search for a term
/convo-list - List all conversations
/convo-recent 5 - Show recent conversations

For more details on manual installation or to view the source code, check out the GitHub repository.

How It Works in Practice

Here’s the beautiful part: you don’t have to do anything. Just use Claude Code normally. When a session ends (really ends, not just pauses), the hook fires automatically and saves everything.

Each session creates three files:

conversation_YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SS.jsonl - The raw conversation data
conversation_YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SS.md - Human-readable transcript
session_YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SS.json - Session metadata

Then when you need to find something from a past conversation:

~/.claude/scripts/search-conversations.sh "that bug with the parser"

Boom. Instant context retrieval.

The Key Insight: Sessions vs. Exits

One thing that tripped me up initially: the SessionEnd hook only fires when a session terminates, not when you exit and resume. This is actually perfect because:

You want long-running sessions for continuity
You only need to save when the session truly ends
Resume functionality keeps your context alive
The hook captures everything when the session finally completes

So if you’re constantly resuming sessions (which you should be!), the hook will fire less frequently - but when it does, it captures the entire multi-day conversation in all its glory.

What You Get

Now every conversation is preserved forever. You can:

Search through past sessions for solutions to similar problems
Review architectural decisions you made weeks ago
Find that one command or script you built in a previous session
Keep a complete archive of your AI-assisted development journey

It’s like having a perfect memory of every coding session.

The Meta Moment

Want to know the really cool part? I built this entire system with Claude Code, and now I’m writing a blog post about that system, and the conversation where we built it is auto-saved, and I can search back through it to remember exactly how we solved each problem.

It’s auto-save inception.

The Bottom Line

If you’re serious about using Claude Code (and you should be - it’s incredible), you need conversation persistence. Five minutes of setup gives you a searchable archive of every AI coding session forever.

No more “I know we solved this before but I can’t remember how.”

No more “I wish I could find that conversation where we built that thing.”

Just automatic, searchable, permanent conversation history.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to search my conversation logs for something I built last week.

Stay curious, keep building, and never lose context again. 🚀

Got ideas for improving this system? Let me know in the comments! I’m thinking about adding tagging, conversation summaries, and maybe even semantic search next.