Session Control

Save your Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, and GitHub Copilot chat history across git commits.

Session Control is a cross-IDE session manager for AI chats. Every conversation with Cursor Agent, Claude Code, Codex, or Copilot can be captured as a structured JSON file in your repo, linked to the branch and commit it belongs to, and resumed later as context in a new chat — through the @session-control chat participant.

Session Control has no cloud of its own — it reads your chats locally and never uploads them anywhere. Saved sessions are plain files in your repo, next to the code they produced, in source control you already trust. Works inside VS Code, Cursor, VSCodium, and other VS-Code-compatible editors via the Open VSX Registry.

Save a chat, browse saved sessions in the Session Explorer, and resume one as context in a new chat — all without leaving your editor.

Why Session Control

• Cross-IDE by design. Save and import chats from Cursor Agent, Claude Code, Codex, and GitHub Copilot — the four assistants polyglot AI users actually run.
• Linked to the commit that produced the code. Every saved session records the branch and SHA, so future you (or a reviewer) can open the chat that explains the diff.
• Lives in your repo, not in someone else's cloud. Sessions are plain JSON in .chat/, reviewable in diffs and PRs. Optional .gitignore toggle if you would rather keep them local.
• Resume into a fresh chat. @session-control /resume <name> reloads a saved conversation as LLM context. No copy-paste, no lost decisions.

Quick start

1. Save a chat. Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P) and run Session Control: Save Session.... Pick the provider, pick the session. A JSON file appears in .chat/.
2. Browse it. Open the Session Control view in the activity bar to see every saved session, or click one to open it in the built-in session viewer.
3. Resume it. In chat, type @session-control /resume <session-name>. The conversation is injected as context and you carry on where you left off.

Optional: turn on Session Control: Toggle Auto-Save on Chat Response and Session Control captures matching chats for the workspace automatically.

Screenshots

Save any chat	Resume as context
Capture a Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, or Copilot chat as JSON in .chat/, linked to the branch and commit you were on.	Type @session-control /resume <name> in chat to reload a saved session as context. Fuzzy match on the title.

Session Explorer	Cross-IDE provider picker
Browse every saved session per workspace folder. Open, resume, or delete from the activity bar.	Pick a provider per save — Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, or Copilot. Auto-detects when running inside Cursor, Codex, or Claude Code.

Features

• Provider choice — Keep Copilot as the default save source, switch to Codex or Claude Code for local transcript import, and let Session Control auto-detect Cursor, Codex, or Claude Code when running inside those hosts.
• Save sessions — Capture Copilot, Cursor, Codex, or Claude Code chats as JSON files in .chat/, enriched with branch and commit metadata.
• Resume sessions — Use @session-control /resume <name> to reload a saved conversation as LLM context in a new chat.
• Auto-save project chats — Optionally monitor project-matched VS Code Copilot Chat, GitHub Copilot CLI, Cursor, Codex, or Claude Code transcript updates and save settled responses to the workspace that owns them.
• Analyze saved chats — Use @session-control /analyze to review a timeframe of saved sessions, or only chats that have not been analyzed yet.
• Implement recommendations — Use @session-control /implement to open a generated implementation prompt in chat or an agent session.
• Import AI skills — Convert repository Copilot guidance into repo-scoped Cursor, Codex, or Claude Code skills under .cursor/skills/, .agents/skills/, or .claude/skills/.
• Browse, preview, delete — Manage saved sessions via the Session Explorer and command palette, with a built-in session viewer and a one-click Resume from the editor title bar.
• Lives in source control — Sessions are plain JSON files tracked alongside your code, reviewable in diffs and PRs.
• Bloat controls — Configurable file size limits, session splitting, tool output stripping, and automatic pruning of old sessions.

Session Control Pro

Everything above is free and stays free. Session Control Pro is an optional paid layer that ships inside this same extension — there is no second extension to install. Enter a license key and the Pro commands unlock in place.

Knowledge Harvesting sends the selected saved-session or document content to the AI model you choose, the same way the free Analyze Saved Chats command does. Saving, resuming, browsing, auto-save, and document extraction stay entirely local.

Run Get Session Control Pro from the Command Palette, or visit sessioncontrol.dev/#pro for pricing and checkout. After purchase, run Enter Pro License Key and paste the key from your receipt.

Commands

All commands are available from the Command Palette under the Session Control category.

In chat, the @session-control participant provides /resume, /list, /analyze, and /implement.

Usage

Save a session

Run Session Control: Save Session.... Session Control prompts for the provider so what gets saved is always your explicit choice rather than a guess from the active window. Choose Copilot to read VS Code chat storage, Codex to import local transcripts from CODEX_HOME or ~/.codex, or Claude Code to import JSONL transcripts from CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR or ~/.claude. After picking a provider, choose the session to save. The JSON file is written to .chat/ in your workspace root.

Cursor support is automatic when the extension is running inside Cursor. Session Control keeps the experimental Cursor CLI project transcripts and legacy Cursor IDE workspace chatSessions input as separate sources — see the auto-save reference for the contract.

Claude Code transcripts are read from ~/.claude/projects/<encoded-workspace-path>/<session-id>.jsonl. Set session-control.claudeCode.homePath if your Claude Code config directory lives somewhere else. Session Control derives <encoded-workspace-path> the same way Claude Code does by replacing :, \, and / in the absolute workspace path with -; for example, E:\chat-commit becomes E--chat-commit. Main session files are normalized into the shared saved-session format, while nested subagents/ transcripts and Claude sidechain records are ignored.

Resume a session

In chat, type @session-control /resume <session-name>. The extension does a fuzzy search on the session name; if multiple sessions match, you pick from the matches. The saved conversation is injected as context into the current chat.

@session-control /list lists saved sessions, as does Session Control: Browse Saved Sessions.

Auto-save project chats

Auto-save is off by default and is enabled independently for each workspace folder. Use Session Control: Toggle Auto-Save on Chat Response, or set:

{
  "session-control.autoSaveOnChatResponse": true,
  "session-control.autoSave.providers": ["copilot"]
}

If session-control.autoSave.providers is omitted, enabling auto-save monitors copilot, codex, claude-code, and cursor. Each enabled folder writes to that folder's configured session-control.storagePath, and a source must positively match that folder — Session Control does not assign an ambiguous global chat to whichever editor happens to be active. A normally completed local response is saved within about 15 seconds.

If a source is not picking up chats, run Session Control: Diagnose Auto-Save.

→ Full auto-save reference — per-source contracts for VS Code Copilot Chat, Copilot CLI, Cursor CLI, and legacy Cursor IDE; project-match rules; behavior across VS Code profiles, Remote SSH, dev containers, and WSL; and how to read the diagnostics report.

Analyze saved chats

In chat, type @session-control /analyze. Choose a timeframe interactively or use a quick alias such as 24h, 7d, 30d, or needs analysis. For a date-based range, Session Control asks whether to analyze only chats in that range that have not been analyzed yet, or re-analyze everything in that range.

Then pick which available provider performs the analysis. Direct language-model providers run inside Session Control; installed Codex, Claude Code, or Cursor agent providers open their chat and receive a workspace-aware analysis handoff. The analysis itself always includes all eligible saved sessions from every provider in the workspace's .chat folder — the provider choice only selects who generates the report.

The participant streams a report back into chat and writes a markdown report under .chat/analysis/reports/, keeping an analysis index in .chat/analysis/index.json so Needs Analysis only selects chats that are new or changed since the last run. The report compares candidate recommendations against the current AGENTS.md, .github/copilot-instructions.md, CLAUDE.md when present, and existing repository-local instruction or skill files, so it lists gaps that are not already covered — unless it is proposing a concrete improvement, consolidation, or removal. When repeated workflows suggest a better reusable setup, it can also recommend creating new AI skill files such as SKILL.md, *.instructions.md, *.prompt.md, or *.agent.md.

Implement recommendations

@session-control /implement generates a compact implementation prompt that points a coding agent at the saved analysis report and keeps the next step focused on those AI control files. When the report recommends a new reusable AI skill, the generated prompt tells the next step to create that skill file and any supporting instruction assets. It uses the same provider selector as analysis: an available VS Code language model, Codex, Claude Code, or Cursor. External providers receive the handoff directly; a VS Code language-model choice opens the prompt in chat for review and sending.

Session Control: Implement Latest Analysis does the same from the Command Palette — it looks across the open workspace folders, finds the newest saved analysis report still on disk, and opens the same provider-selection flow.

Import Copilot guidance as Cursor, Codex, or Claude Code skills

The three Import Copilot Guidance as ... Skills commands scan repository guidance such as .github/copilot-instructions.md, .github/instructions/*.instructions.md, .github/prompts/*.prompt.md, and other repo-local *.instructions.md, *.prompt.md, *.agent.md, or SKILL.md files. Each source is imported into .cursor/skills/<slug>/SKILL.md, .agents/skills/<slug>/SKILL.md, or .claude/skills/<slug>/SKILL.md, without overwriting existing skills.

View a saved session

Open the Session Control activity bar view and click a session under Saved Sessions, or open a saved session file and use the View Session preview icon in the editor title bar. The title action appears only when the active file is a valid Session Control session document; if your JSON does not match the schema, the viewer action is hidden and the command reports that the format is not recognized.

When a session is open in the viewer, a ▶ Resume icon in the editor title bar opens the chat panel with @session-control /resume <session-title> pre-filled.

Configuration

Privacy Warning — Public Repositories

⚠️ Do not commit .chat/ sessions to a public repository without reviewing them first.

Saved session files are plain JSON that records the full conversation between you and the selected AI provider, including all tool call inputs and outputs. These files routinely contain:

• Local filesystem paths (e.g. C:\Users\yourname\...) that expose your OS username and machine layout
• Workspace-internal details captured by agent tool calls (file contents, terminal output, search results)

To keep sessions private, enable the built-in setting:

"session-control.includeInGitignore": true

This automatically adds your storage folder to .gitignore so sessions are never staged. Alternatively, add .chat/ (or your configured storagePath) to .gitignore manually.

Requirements

• VS Code ^1.93.0, or a VS-Code-compatible editor (Cursor, VSCodium, Windsurf, Positron, Trae)
• GitHub Copilot extension installed and signed in to save VS Code Copilot Chat sessions
• GitHub Copilot CLI installed and signed in to auto-save its local session event logs
• Cursor installed locally to import or auto-save Cursor Agent transcript sessions
• Codex installed locally to import or auto-save Codex sessions, or create repo-scoped Codex skills
• Claude Code installed locally to import or auto-save Claude Code sessions, or create repo-scoped Claude Code skills

Each requirement applies only to the provider you want to use — none of them are needed to install Session Control.

Installation

Search for Session Control in your editor's extensions view, or install from:

• Open VSX Registry — for Cursor, Windsurf, VSCodium, Codium, Positron, Trae, and other VS-Code-compatible editors.
• VS Code Marketplace — for stock Visual Studio Code.

Documentation

• Auto-save reference — sources, project matching, profiles, remote and WSL boundaries, diagnostics
• Changelog
• Contributing — dev setup, testing instructions, and PR guidelines

License

MIT