May you and your agents never lose a conversation ever again.

Fainder is a tiny, local and read-only terminal app for finding and resuming your conversations.

It searches Codex, Claude Code, OpenCode, Hermes, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot histories from one place, then returns the right resume command. Agents can also inspect a conversation by turn and print bounded chronological context without starting another harness or calling an LLM.

Install

brew install satelerd/tap/fainder
fainder

To update an existing install:

brew update
brew upgrade fainder

Quick Start

Humans can open the TUI:

fainder

Fainder opens on your most recent conversations, newest first. Type a query, pick a conversation, then press Enter to copy the resume command. A live line under the search box always tells you exactly how your query is being matched. Press Ctrl-s (or Tab) for a filter panel to pick providers, search mode, and scope.

That’s it.

Agent CLI

Find candidates:

fainder recent --limit 8
fainder search "SmartUp migration" --json --limit 8

Inspect one conversation before reading a large transcript:

fainder inspect claude:cab15fb3 --role user --limit 40
fainder inspect claude:cab15fb3 --find "PR|commit|deploy" --regex
fainder inspect claude:cab15fb3 --around 96 --context 8

Print a deterministic transcript window in chronological order:

fainder context claude:cab15fb3 --from-turn 90 --to-turn 130
fainder context codex:019dec17 --tail 80 --truncate-tools

Large context views show a token estimate first and require --confirm.

Raycast

The repo includes an optional Raycast extension that uses the Fainder CLI:

cd raycast
npm install --cache /private/tmp/fainder-npm-cache
npm run dev

Now you can find your conversations from Raycast.

The extension calls fainder recent --json before you type, then fainder search <query> --json once you search. It lists conversations and lets you copy or open the selected resume_command.

For Raycast-only usage, the extension needs to be published to the Raycast Store. The extension is prepared for that flow:

cd raycast
npm run build
npm run publish

Once Raycast approves and publishes it, install it from Raycast Store and run Search Conversations. Fainder itself is still the local search engine, so the extension will prompt you to install it with Homebrew if the fainder binary is missing.

Skill

Fainder includes a portable agent skill at:

skills/fainder/SKILL.md

Agent harnesses that support skills can load that file to learn how to install, query, parse, and safely use Fainder.

Query Behavior

• By default the query matches as one exact phrase (case-insensitive). For example, SmartUp agents only matches conversations with those words adjacent and in that order.
• words mode (Ctrl-m in the TUI, --words in the CLI) requires every word independently in any order.
• regex mode lets you use patterns like SmartUp|bedrock.
• A single word behaves the same in every mode and searches titles, paths, recent messages, and transcript content.
• Search waits briefly after typing so it does not scan while you are still entering a query.

Search Model

• Metadata is read live from native provider files.
• Uses ripgrep for fast transcript search. The Homebrew formula installs it automatically.
• Full-text search uses live transcript scans and rg candidate discovery.
• OpenCode is read from OpenCode's own SQLite database.
• Cursor and GitHub Copilot are read from VS Code-style workspaceStorage SQLite databases.
• Fainder does not require a background service or manual indexing step.

Development

cargo test
cargo run
cargo run -- search SmartUp --limit 5
cargo run -- inspect codex:019dec17 --role user --limit 10
cargo run -- context codex:019dec17 --tail 20

Release

Release automation updates Cargo metadata, tags the repo, computes the Homebrew tarball SHA, updates the formula, and pushes the tap:

scripts/release.sh 0.1.3