session-logs

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

Session logs live at: ~/.openclaw/agents//sessions/ (use the agent= value from the system prompt Runtime line).

• sessions.json - Index mapping session keys to session IDs
• .jsonl - Full conversation transcript per session

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

List all sessions by date and size

```bash

for f in ~/.openclaw/agents//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

```bash

for f in ~/.openclaw/agents//sessions/*.jsonl; do

head -1 "$f" | jq -r '.timestamp' | grep -q "2026-01-06" && echo "$f"

done

```

Extract user messages from a session

```bash

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

```

Search for keyword in assistant responses

```bash

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

```

Get total cost for a session

```bash

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

```

Daily cost summary

```bash

for f in ~/.openclaw/agents//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

```bash

jq -s '{

messages: length,

user: [.[] | select(.message.role == "user")] | length,

assistant: [.[] | select(.message.role == "assistant")] | length,

first: .[0].timestamp,

last: .[-1].timestamp

}' .jsonl

```

Tool usage breakdown

```bash

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

```

Search across ALL sessions for a phrase

```bash

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

```

• 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. suffix

```bash

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

```