/remembering-conversations

Conversation Search Deployment Guide

Quick reference for deploying and maintaining the conversation indexing system.

Initial Deployment

cd ~/.claude/skills/collaboration/remembering-conversations/tool

# 1. Install hook
./install-hook

# 2. Index existing conversations (with parallel summarization)
./index-conversations --cleanup --concurrency 8

# 3. Verify index health
./index-conversations --verify

# 4. Test search
./search-conversations "test query"

Expected results:

• Hook installed at ~/.claude/hooks/sessionEnd
• Summaries created for all conversations (50-120 words each)
• Search returns relevant results in <1 second
• No verification errors

Performance tip: Use --concurrency 8 or --concurrency 16 for 8-16x faster summarization on initial indexing. Hook uses concurrency=1 (safe for background).

Ongoing Maintenance

Automatic (No Action Required)

• Hook runs after every session ends
• New conversations indexed in background (<30 sec per conversation)
• Summaries generated automatically

Weekly Health Check

cd ~/.claude/skills/collaboration/remembering-conversations/tool
./index-conversations --verify

If issues found:

./index-conversations --repair

After System Changes

Recovery Scenarios

Monitoring

Health Checks

# Check hook installed and executable
ls -l ~/.claude/hooks/sessionEnd

# Check recent conversations
ls -lt ~/.clank/conversation-archive/*/*.jsonl | head -5

# Check database size
ls -lh ~/.clank/conversation-index/db.sqlite

# Full verification
./index-conversations --verify

Expected Behavior Metrics

• Hook execution: Within seconds of session end
• Indexing speed: <30 seconds per conversation
• Summary length: 50-120 words
• Search latency: <1 second
• Verification: 0 errors when healthy

Log Output

Normal indexing:

Initializing database...
Loading embedding model...
Processing project: my-project (3 conversations)
  Summary: 87 words
  Indexed conversation.jsonl: 5 exchanges
✅ Indexing complete! Conversations: 3, Exchanges: 15

Verification with issues:

Verifying conversation index...
Verified 100 conversations.

=== Verification Results ===
Missing summaries: 2
Orphaned entries: 0
Outdated files: 1
Corrupted files: 0

Run with --repair to fix these issues.

Troubleshooting

Hook Not Running

Symptoms: New conversations not indexed automatically

Diagnosis:

# 1. Check hook exists and is executable
ls -l ~/.claude/hooks/sessionEnd
# Should show: -rwxr-xr-x ... sessionEnd

# 2. Check $SESSION_ID is set during sessions
echo $SESSION_ID
# Should show: session ID when in active session

# 3. Check indexer exists
ls -l ~/.claude/skills/collaboration/remembering-conversations/tool/index-conversations
# Should show: -rwxr-xr-x ... index-conversations

# 4. Test hook manually
SESSION_ID=test-$(date +%s) ~/.claude/hooks/sessionEnd

Fix:

# Make hook executable
chmod +x ~/.claude/hooks/sessionEnd

# Reinstall if needed
./install-hook

Summaries Failing

Symptoms: Verify shows missing summaries, repair fails

Diagnosis:

# Check API key
echo $ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
# Should show: sk-ant-...

# Try manual indexing with logging
./index-conversations 2>&1 | tee index.log
grep -i error index.log

Fix:

# Set API key if missing
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="your-key-here"

# Check for rate limits (wait and retry)
sleep 60 && ./index-conversations --repair

# Fallback uses claude-3-haiku-20240307 (cheaper)
# Check logs for: "Summary: N words" to confirm success

Search Not Finding Results

Symptoms: ./search-conversations "query" returns no results

Diagnosis:

# 1. Verify conversations indexed
./index-conversations --verify

# 2. Check database exists and has data
ls -lh ~/.clank/conversation-index/db.sqlite
# Should be > 100KB if conversations indexed

# 3. Try text search (exact match)
./search-conversations --text "exact phrase from conversation"

# 4. Check for corruption
sqlite3 ~/.clank/conversation-index/db.sqlite "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM exchanges;"
# Should show number > 0

Fix:

# If database missing or corrupt
./index-conversations --rebuild

# If specific conversations missing
./index-conversations --repair

# If still failing, check embedding model
rm -rf ~/.cache/transformers  # Force re-download
./index-conversations

Database Corruption

Symptoms: Errors like "database disk image is malformed"

Fix:

# 1. Backup current database
cp ~/.clank/conversation-index/db.sqlite ~/.clank/conversation-index/db.sqlite.backup

# 2. Rebuild from scratch
./index-conversations --rebuild
# Confirms with: "Are you sure? [yes/NO]:"
# Type: yes

# 3. Verify rebuild
./index-conversations --verify

Commands Reference

# Index all conversations
./index-conversations

# Index specific session (called by hook)
./index-conversations --session <session-id>

# Index only unprocessed conversations
./index-conversations --cleanup

# Verify index health
./index-conversations --verify

# Repair issues found by verify
./index-conversations --repair

# Rebuild everything (with confirmation)
./index-conversations --rebuild

# Search conversations (semantic)
./search-conversations "query"

# Search conversations (text match)
./search-conversations --text "exact phrase"

# Install/reinstall hook
./install-hook

Subagent Workflow

For searching conversations from within Claude Code sessions, use the subagent pattern (see skills/getting-started for complete workflow).

Template: tool/prompts/search-agent.md

Key requirements:

• Synthesis must be 200-1000 words (Summary section)
• All sources must include: project, date, file path, status
• No raw conversation excerpts (synthesize instead)
• Follow-up via subagent (not direct file reads)

Manual test checklist:

1. ✓ Dispatch subagent with search template
2. ✓ Verify synthesis 200-1000 words
3. ✓ Verify all sources have metadata (project, date, path, status)
4. ✓ Ask follow-up → dispatch second subagent to dig deeper
5. ✓ Confirm no raw conversations in main context

Files and Directories

~/.claude/
├── hooks/
│   └── sessionEnd                 # Hook that triggers indexing
└── skills/collaboration/remembering-conversations/
    ├── SKILL.md                   # Main documentation
    ├── DEPLOYMENT.md              # This file
    └── tool/
        ├── index-conversations    # Main indexer
        ├── search-conversations   # Search interface
        ├── install-hook           # Hook installer
        ├── test-deployment.sh     # End-to-end tests
        ├── src/                   # TypeScript source
        └── prompts/
            └── search-agent.md    # Subagent template

~/.clank/
├── conversation-archive/          # Archived conversations
│   └── <project>/
│       ├── <uuid>.jsonl          # Conversation file
│       └── <uuid>-summary.txt    # AI summary (50-120 words)
└── conversation-index/
    └── db.sqlite                  # SQLite database with embeddings

Deployment Checklist

Initial Setup

• Hook installed: ./install-hook
• Existing conversations indexed: ./index-conversations
• Verification clean: ./index-conversations --verify
• Search working: ./search-conversations "test"
• Subagent template exists: ls tool/prompts/search-agent.md

Ongoing

• Weekly: Run --verify and --repair if needed
• After system changes: Re-verify
• Monitor: Check hook runs (summaries appear for new conversations)

Testing

• Run end-to-end tests: ./test-deployment.sh
• All 5 scenarios pass
• Manual subagent test (see scenario 5 in test output)