obsidian-wiki/.skills/copilot-history-ingest/references/copilot-data-format.md

GitHub Copilot CLI Data Format — Detailed Reference

Session-State Directory

~/.copilot/session-state/ contains one directory per session the user has run with GitHub Copilot CLI. Each directory is named with a UUID.

workspace.yaml

Minimal session metadata file, always present:

id: <session-uuid>
cwd: /path/to/project
summary_count: 3
created_at: 2026-04-02T14:28:13.304Z
updated_at: 2026-04-29T12:00:00.000Z

summary_count reflects how many checkpoints were written. Sessions with summary_count: 0 were either very short or completed without checkpointing — check events.jsonl for content anyway.

vscode.metadata.json

VS Code context, written when the session is associated with a VS Code workspace:

{
  "workspaceFolder": {
    "folderPath": "c:\\Users\\name\\git\\my-project",
    "timestamp": 1773245818098
  },
  "writtenToDisc": true,
  "repositoryProperties": {
    "repositoryPath": "c:\\Users\\name\\git\\my-project",
    "branchName": "feature/my-branch",
    "baseBranchName": "origin/main"
  },
  "customTitle": "User-written session label or system-set title"
}

customTitle is the most human-readable session label — use it as a heading when creating session-derived wiki content. May be absent on older sessions.

events.jsonl

The full event log for one session. Each line is a JSON object representing one event in the session.

Event: session.start

{
  "type": "session.start",
  "data": {
    "sessionId": "09371a50-9a50-484a-8743-5c696de1623a",
    "version": 1,
    "producer": "copilot-agent",
    "copilotVersion": "0.0.420",
    "startTime": "2026-03-02T15:10:04.678Z",
    "context": {
      "cwd": "C:\\Users\\name\\git\\my-project",
      "gitRoot": "C:\\Users\\name\\git\\my-project",
      "branch": "master"
    }
  },
  "id": "<event-uuid>",
  "timestamp": "2026-03-02T15:10:04.817Z",
  "parentId": null
}

data.context.cwd and data.context.branch establish the project context. Always read session.start first.

Event: user.message

{
  "type": "user.message",
  "data": {
    "content": "review my staged but uncommitted changes for issues",
    "transformedContent": "<current_datetime>...</current_datetime>\n\nreview my staged...",
    "attachments": [],
    "interactionId": "9352571e-a0b9-4774-8ecb-40bc58f86e94"
  },
  "id": "<event-uuid>",
  "timestamp": "2026-03-02T15:10:45.058Z",
  "parentId": "<parent-event-uuid>"
}

Use data.content (not data.transformedContent) — the transformed version includes injected system context that's noise for wiki purposes.

Event: assistant.message

{
  "type": "assistant.message",
  "data": {
    "messageId": "<uuid>",
    "content": "I'll review the staged changes in those three files.",
    "toolRequests": [
      {
        "toolCallId": "tooluse_...",
        "name": "report_intent",
        "arguments": { "intent": "Reviewing staged changes" },
        "type": "function"
      },
      {
        "toolCallId": "tooluse_...",
        "name": "powershell",
        "arguments": {
          "command": "git --no-pager diff --cached --stat",
          "description": "Show staged diff"
        },
        "type": "function"
      }
    ],
    "interactionId": "9352571e-a0b9-4774-8ecb-40bc58f86e94",
    "reasoningOpaque": "<base64-encrypted-reasoning>",
    "reasoningText": "The user wants me to review staged git changes..."
  },
  "id": "<event-uuid>",
  "timestamp": "2026-03-02T15:10:50.235Z",
  "parentId": "<parent-event-uuid>"
}

Extraction strategy:

• Extract data.content — the assistant's visible text response
• data.toolRequests — skim tool names and description arguments for file/command patterns; ignore report_intent calls
• Skip data.reasoningOpaque entirely — encrypted/encoded internal reasoning
• Skip data.reasoningText entirely — decrypted reasoning; internal only, never user-visible

Event: assistant.turn_start

{
  "type": "assistant.turn_start",
  "data": { "turnId": "0", "interactionId": "..." },
  "id": "...",
  "timestamp": "..."
}

Marks the start of an assistant turn. Useful for turn boundary detection; no content to extract.

Event: tool.execution_start

{
  "type": "tool.execution_start",
  "data": {
    "toolCallId": "tooluse_...",
    "toolName": "powershell",
    "arguments": { "command": "dotnet build ...", "description": "Build project" }
  },
  "id": "...",
  "timestamp": "..."
}

Reveals what tools (file reads, commands, searches) were invoked. File-related tools (view, edit, create) with their paths are worth noting for the session_files equivalent when reading events directly.

Event: tool.execution_end

Contains the raw tool output. Usually noise — skip unless diagnosing errors.

checkpoints/<uuid>.json

Mid-session progress summaries, written automatically as the session progresses:

{
  "title": "Implementing auth module",
  "overview": "Working on JWT authentication for the API...",
  "history": "1. Analyzed existing auth code\n2. Created IAuthService...",
  "work_done": "- Created IAuthService interface\n- Implemented JwtAuthService",
  "technical_details": "Uses RS256 signing. Token expiry configurable via settings...",
  "important_files": "- src/Auth/IAuthService.cs\n- src/Auth/JwtAuthService.cs",
  "next_steps": "- Wire up to DI container\n- Add refresh token support"
}

This is the highest-value structured content in the per-session directory — equivalent to Claude's memory files.

index.md

Session-end summary written as a markdown file. Typically 1–3 paragraphs summarizing what was accomplished. Content varies by session length and complexity. Read this before opening events.jsonl to decide if the session is worth deep-processing.

---

Global Session Store (session-store.db)

SQLite database at ~/.copilot/session-store.db. The canonical cross-session record.

Schema

sessions

Column	Type	Notes
id	TEXT	Session UUID (PK)
cwd	TEXT	Working directory
repository	TEXT	owner/repo format when available
branch	TEXT	Git branch name
summary	TEXT	One-paragraph session summary
created_at	TEXT	ISO 8601 timestamp
updated_at	TEXT	ISO 8601 timestamp — use for delta checks
host_type	TEXT	"vscode", "cli", or similar

turns

Column	Type	Notes
id	INTEGER	PK
session_id	TEXT	FK → sessions.id
turn_index	INTEGER	0-based turn sequence
user_message	TEXT	Raw user message
assistant_response	TEXT	Assistant's text response
timestamp	TEXT	ISO 8601 timestamp

Note: user_message here is the pre-transformation content — use this, not transformedContent from events.jsonl.

checkpoints

Column	Type	Notes
id	INTEGER	PK
session_id	TEXT	FK → sessions.id
checkpoint_number	INTEGER	1-based
title	TEXT	Short title
overview	TEXT	High-level summary
history	TEXT	Step-by-step of what happened
work_done	TEXT	Completed items
technical_details	TEXT	Implementation specifics
important_files	TEXT	Key files touched
next_steps	TEXT	Open threads
created_at	TEXT	ISO 8601 timestamp

session_files

Column	Type	Notes
session_id	TEXT	FK → sessions.id
file_path	TEXT	Absolute path to the file
tool_name	TEXT	"edit", "create", "view", etc.
turn_index	INTEGER	Which turn touched the file
first_seen_at	TEXT	ISO 8601 timestamp

⚠️ No id column — use COUNT(DISTINCT sf.file_path) not COUNT(DISTINCT sf.id).

Aggregate by file_path across sessions to identify architecturally important files.

session_refs

Column	Type	Notes
id	INTEGER	PK
session_id	TEXT	FK → sessions.id
ref_type	TEXT	"commit", "pr", "issue"
ref_value	TEXT	Commit SHA, PR number, issue number
turn_index	INTEGER	Which turn referenced it
created_at	TEXT	ISO 8601 timestamp

search_index (FTS5)

Full-text search index. Use for keyword discovery when surveying a large history:

SELECT content, session_id, source_type
FROM search_index
WHERE search_index MATCH 'auth OR authentication OR login'
LIMIT 20;

source_type values: "turn", "checkpoint_overview", "checkpoint_history", "checkpoint_work_done", "checkpoint_technical", "checkpoint_files", "checkpoint_next_steps", "workspace_artifact".

---

VS Code Workspace Storage

Location

The workspaceStorage directory is platform-specific:

Platform	Default path
Windows	%APPDATA%\Code\User\workspaceStorage\
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/Code/User/workspaceStorage/
Linux	~/.config/Code/User/workspaceStorage/

Each <hash>/ subdirectory corresponds to a specific workspace (VS Code folder). The hash is derived from the workspace path — there is no human-readable mapping, so enumerate all <hash>/GitHub.copilot-chat/ directories and use the transcripts/ JSONL files' session.start events to identify which project each belongs to.

Transcript JSONL (transcripts/<uuid>.jsonl)

Identical format to events.jsonl from Source 1. Parse using the same event type handlers. The session.start event's data.context.cwd tells you which project this belongs to.

Memory Artifacts (memory-tool/memories/<base64-session-id>/)

Directory name is the session UUID encoded as base64. Files inside are markdown documents explicitly saved by the user or system during the session — typically plan.md containing the session plan.

Decode the directory name to link it to a session:

import base64
# Pad to multiple of 4 before decoding
session_id = base64.b64decode(dir_name + '==').decode('utf-8')

---

Processing Order

For maximum efficiency and signal-to-noise:

1. session-store.db checkpoints — Fastest, highest signal. Query all at once.
2. session-store.db sessions.summary — One-paragraph synopsis per session.
3. Per-session checkpoints/*.json + index.md — For sessions not yet in session-store.db or for additional detail.
4. Memory artifacts (memory-tool/memories/) — User-authored, high quality.
5. session-store.db turns — Full conversation, process selectively by topic.
6. events.jsonl / transcript JSONL — Only if session-store.db is absent or incomplete.
7. session_files / session_refs — For file pattern and git linkage metadata.