Session Management

Session management in Rawi allows you to maintain persistent conversations with AI, keeping context and conversation history across multiple commands.

What Are Sessions?

Sessions are persistent conversations that maintain context between multiple AI interactions. When you start a session, Rawi remembers:

• Previous questions and responses
• Conversation context and topics
• Code snippets and examples discussed
• Follow-up questions and clarifications

Basic Session Commands

Starting a New Session

# Start a new session with your first question
rawi ask --new-session "I'm building a REST API in Node.js"

# Start a named session
rawi ask --new-session --session my-project "Let's discuss authentication patterns"

Continuing a Session

# Continue the conversation (Rawi remembers the context)
rawi ask "What's the best way to handle JWT tokens?"
rawi ask "How do I implement rate limiting?"
rawi ask "Can you show me a middleware example?"

Using Specific Sessions

# Continue a specific session by ID
rawi ask --session abc123 "Let's continue our API discussion"

# List all your sessions
rawi history --sessions

# Show session details
rawi history --session abc123 --show

Session Management

Listing Sessions

# List all sessions
rawi history --sessions

# List sessions with details
rawi history --sessions --verbose

# Filter sessions by date
rawi history --sessions --since "2024-01-01"

Example output:

Sessions:
┌─────────┬────────────────────┬─────────────────────┬───────────┐
│ ID      │ Started            │ Last Updated        │ Messages  │
├─────────┼────────────────────┼─────────────────────┼───────────┤
│ abc123  │ 2024-01-15 10:30   │ 2024-01-15 11:45    │ 8         │
│ def456  │ 2024-01-14 14:20   │ 2024-01-14 15:30    │ 12        │
│ ghi789  │ 2024-01-13 09:15   │ 2024-01-13 10:00    │ 4         │
└─────────┴────────────────────┴─────────────────────┴───────────┘

Session Details

# Show full session conversation
rawi history --session abc123 --show

# Export session to file
rawi history --session abc123 --export > api-discussion.md

# Search within a session
rawi history --session abc123 --search "authentication"

Practical Session Examples

Code Development Session

# Start a development session
rawi ask --new-session "I'm building a user authentication system in Express.js"

# Continue developing
rawi ask "How do I hash passwords securely?"
rawi ask "What's the best way to store JWT tokens?"
rawi ask "Can you show me a complete login route?"
rawi ask "How do I handle password reset functionality?"

Learning Session

# Start learning about a new technology
rawi ask --new-session "I want to learn Docker. Can you explain the basics?"

# Progressive learning
rawi ask "What's the difference between images and containers?"
rawi ask "How do I create a Dockerfile?"
rawi ask "Can you show me a real example?"
rawi ask "How do I handle environment variables?"

Debugging Session

# Start with an error
rawi ask --new-session "I'm getting a 'Cannot read property of undefined' error in my React app"

# Iterative debugging
rawi ask "Here's my component code: [paste code]"
rawi ask "The error happens when I click the submit button"
rawi ask "I tried your suggestion, but now I get a different error"

Session Best Practices

1. Use Descriptive Starting Questions

Good:

rawi ask --new-session "I'm building a React e-commerce app and need help with state management"

Better context than:

rawi ask --new-session "Help me with React"

2. Keep Sessions Focused

• Use separate sessions for different topics
• Start new sessions when switching projects
• Don’t mix unrelated questions in one session

3. Reference Previous Context

# Good follow-up questions
rawi ask "Can you modify the authentication code you showed earlier to use bcrypt?"
rawi ask "What about the database schema we discussed?"

4. Use Sessions with Templates

# Start a specialized session
rawi ask --new-session --act software-engineer "I'm designing a microservices architecture"

# Continue with the same expertise
rawi ask "How do I handle service-to-service communication?"

Advanced Session Features

Session with Profiles

# Use different profiles for different sessions
rawi ask --new-session --profile work "Let's discuss the API redesign"
rawi ask --new-session --profile personal "Help me with my side project"

Session Export and Sharing

# Export session as markdown
rawi history --session abc123 --export --format markdown > discussion.md

# Export as JSON for processing
rawi history --session abc123 --export --format json > session.json

# Export specific date range
rawi history --since "2024-01-01" --until "2024-01-31" --export

Session Search and Analysis

# Search across all sessions
rawi history --search "authentication JWT"

# Find sessions about specific topics
rawi history --search "React hooks" --sessions-only

# Get session statistics
rawi history --stats

Session Workflow Patterns

Project-Based Sessions

# Main project session
rawi ask --new-session --session main-project "Working on the user dashboard feature"

# Feature-specific sessions
rawi ask --new-session --session auth-feature "Implementing OAuth2 integration"
rawi ask --new-session --session ui-redesign "Updating the component library"

Daily Development Sessions

# Morning planning session
rawi ask --new-session --session daily-$(date +%Y%m%d) "Today I'm working on [feature]"

# Reference throughout the day
rawi ask --session daily-$(date +%Y%m%d) "I'm stuck on this implementation"

Code Review Sessions

# Start review session
rawi ask --new-session --act code-reviewer "I need to review this pull request"

# Iterative review
rawi ask "Here's the first file: [code]"
rawi ask "And here's the test file: [code]"
rawi ask "What about the overall architecture?"

Session Configuration

Default Session Behavior

# Configure default session settings
rawi configure --auto-session true  # Auto-create sessions
rawi configure --session-timeout 24h  # Session expiry time
rawi configure --max-sessions 50  # Maximum stored sessions

Session Cleanup

# Clean up old sessions
rawi history --cleanup --older-than "30d"

# Archive important sessions
rawi history --session abc123 --archive

Troubleshooting Sessions

Common Session Issues

Session not found:

# List all sessions to find the correct ID
rawi history --sessions

Session context lost:

# Check session details
rawi history --session abc123 --show

Too many sessions:

# Clean up old sessions
rawi history --cleanup

Integration with Other Features

Sessions + Shell Integration

# Start session with file analysis
cat app.js | rawi ask --new-session --act code-reviewer "Review this file"

# Continue session with more files
cat tests.js | rawi ask "Now review the tests for the same functionality"

Sessions + Workflows

# Development workflow session
rawi ask --new-session "Starting feature: user profile management"
# ... development continues ...
rawi ask "Feature complete, now I need deployment instructions"

See Also

• ask command — Basic AI interactions
• history command — Managing conversation history
• Workflows — Real-world usage patterns
• Shell Integration — Using sessions with shell commands