Sessions

Session persistence, history, resume, and rewind.

Every mew conversation is persisted to disk as it happens. You can list past sessions, resume one, rewind to an earlier point, or clear the current context.

Where sessions live

Sessions are stored as JSONL files under a per-session directory:

~/.config/mew/sessions/<session-id>/
  ├── session.jsonl    # one JSON message per line
  ├── meta.json        # session metadata
  └── todos.json       # session todo list (if any)

The default path is ~/.config/mew/sessions/ on macOS and Linux. You can override the location with the MEW_SESSION_DIR environment variable.

Subagent sessions nest under their parent:

sessions/<parent-id>/subagents/<child-id>/

The /sessions command lists top-level sessions only. Subagent sessions are hidden from the list.

Session metadata

meta.json records:

Field	Description
`id`	Session identifier (ULID)
`model`	Model used for this session
`parent_session_id`	Set for subagent sessions
`children_session_ids`	Subagent sessions spawned under this one
`depth`	Nesting level (0 for top-level)
`subagent_name`	Subagent type name (if applicable)
`created_at`	Unix timestamp in milliseconds

Listing sessions

/sessions

Shows up to 20 recent sessions, sorted by last modified, with file size:

sessions:
  01JXK4M3PQ7B9...  (14284 bytes)
  01JXJ2F8NK6Q1...  (8921 bytes)
  ...

Resuming a session

/resume <session-id>

Loads the full message history from disk, replaces the current conversation, and restores the session’s todo list. The session ID is the folder name shown by /sessions.

Resume reconstructs the conversation from the JSONL log. If the session was cleared with /clear at some point, resume replays forward from the clear marker, so you get the post-clear context.

Rewinding

/rewind <n>

Truncates the conversation to keep only the first n messages. Both the display store and the agent’s API history are truncated. A synthetic message confirms how many messages were removed.

Without an argument:

/rewind

Lists the last 15 messages with their indices and role, so you can pick the number to keep.

Rewind doesn’t modify the session file on disk. The JSONL log is append-only. Rewind only changes what the model sees on the next turn.

You cannot rewind while streaming.

Clearing the context

/clear

Clears the visible conversation. A clear marker is appended to the session log so resume knows where the fresh context starts.

Permission caches survive /clear. If you approved a tool for the session with “Allow session”, that approval persists. This is intentional: a session is the JSONL log, the context is what the model sees this turn, and clearing the latter doesn’t invalidate your prior grants.

Compaction

/compact

Forces context compaction on the next turn. When the conversation approaches the model’s context window, mew summarizes earlier messages to free space. /compact triggers this immediately rather than waiting for the threshold.

Compaction runs automatically when needed. The command is for when you want to control the timing.

Session IDs

Session IDs are ULIDs (Universally Unique Lexicographically Sortable Identifiers). They sort chronologically by creation time, which is why /sessions can list them newest-first without reading metadata.

Daemon sessions

When running the daemon (mew daemon), sessions are managed by the SessionManager. Multiple clients can attach to the same session. See Daemon Protocol for the wire-level details.