Session browser: an instant, searchable list of all Claude Code (and Codex) sessions with one-click resume #119

Before anything else: when this issue is picked up, the work MUST start with the /grill-me skill with Max, to settle the design before any spec, plan or code. Max wants it done correctly, not thrown together.

Owner, 2026-10-04 (relayed from a research session). This is the idea, not a decided design.

1. Problem

• In Claude Code, claude --resume or /resume, then Ctrl+A, shows all sessions across projects. It often takes around 10 seconds to load.
• The list is hard to scan and search, and it has no sense of which sessions Max used most.

2. What Max wants

• Open instantly: a Prism command or popup (a shortcut and/or the command palette) that shows a full list of recent sessions, or all of them, at once.
• Ranked and searchable: by recency and by how often and how recently Max used each one ("remembers what I used most recently").
• Per session: the first or last prompt, the project folder, the branch, the last activity, and the agent (Claude or Codex).
• One-click resume: in a new tab, through the existing validated resume path (agentResume.ts).

3. Speed: a cache or index

• Prism's own index: kept locally and updated in the background as sessions change (watch the session folders, parse only new or changed files), so the list opens instantly instead of re-scanning every time.
• Measure first: find out where the ~10 s actually goes before designing the cache. Claude Code's list is most likely built by reading the local transcript files under ~/.claude/projects (Max has many, and large ones), possibly plus remote or cloud sessions. This is unverified.

4. Constraints and risks

• Formats can change: transcript and session file formats are internal and can change between Claude Code versions, so the parser must check the version and fall back gracefully. Codex sessions (~/.codex/sessions) use a different format that needs measuring.
• Privacy: transcripts can contain secrets. The index stays local, previews stay minimal, there is an off switch, and PRIVACY.md gets a line if new data is stored.
• The shell rule: resuming opens a new tab and never types into an existing shell.
• For other people: a product that works on a fresh Windows install. Whether it goes in core/ or the app is an owner decision.

5. Related

• Research: C:\Users\Admin\Documents\Claude\research\prism-terminal\2026-10-04-mods-support-and-beyond.md, ideas B9 (a unified resume rail) and B7 (the agent roster).
• Extension framework: this could be one of the first users of Extension framework: a VS Code-style plugin system for Prism Terminal with first-class Claude Code mod integration #118, or ship natively first. That is for the grill-me session to decide.

Research and idea only: nothing has been changed in the repo.