> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://alike.help/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Sessions and transcript capture

> How your agent sessions reach Alike, how long it takes, and how to run a capture by hand.

Alike learns from your coding sessions. Each session becomes a searchable record with a short summary. Alike also finds tasks and decisions in it.

## How sessions reach Alike

* **Live hooks** send events while the session runs. The session shows in Alike at the first prompt or tool call.
* **Transcript capture** uploads the complete session files for the agents that you chose at install. This also brings in sessions from before you installed Alike.

For the exact data, see [What leaves your machine](https://alike.help/privacy/what-leaves-your-machine.md).

## When capture runs

Capture runs in the background. It does not slow down your agent.

| Trigger | Agents |
| - | - |
| An agent with a turn-end hook finishes a turn. Capture runs at most once a minute | All chosen agents |
| You run `npx @alikeai/setup --sweep` | All chosen agents |
| An hourly schedule that you set up | All chosen agents |

Windsurf, Zed, and Continue have no hook that can start a capture. If another agent on the machine has one, its captures include them. If not, run `--sweep` or set up a schedule. The installer then warns you: `Capture is on, but no agent here has a working sweep trigger`.

### Set up an hourly capture

On macOS:

```bash theme={null}
npx @alikeai/setup --enable-scheduled-sweep
launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/works.alike.sweep.plist
```

The first command writes the schedule. The second command starts it now. Without the second command, it starts at your next login.

On Linux, add this line with `crontab -e`:

```text theme={null}
0 * * * * npx -y @alikeai/setup --sweep
```

Make sure that `npx` is on the `PATH` that cron uses.

On macOS, the schedule runs the installer from the `npx` cache with the Node.js version that you used at setup. If you clear the `npx` cache or remove that Node.js version, the schedule stops. Run the first command again. The first scheduled capture runs one hour after the schedule starts.

## Your first capture

The first capture uploads your full history for each chosen agent, newest sessions first. It starts after the first turn that an agent finishes after you install Alike. For a long history, the upload can take several minutes.

To see the progress, run `npx @alikeai/setup --doctor` and read the sweep section. The log is in `~/.alike/logs/sweep.log`.

## When items appear

* **Session record**: at the first prompt or tool call.
* **Summary**: after the session ends. A session ends when the agent closes it, or after 30 minutes without activity.
* **Tasks and decisions**: some minutes after activity. Alike can update them more than once while a session is still open.

A session counts as live while it has activity in the last 5 minutes.

## Limits

* Very large sessions are refused. The doctor shows them as `permanently rejected`, and they are not sent again.
* A very long live session keeps its newest turns. The oldest turns are dropped.
* If Alike refuses a request because of too much traffic, the events in that request are lost. The session continues normally. Transcript capture tries again later.

## Search your past sessions

Ask your agent. It searches only your own sessions and sources:

* "Search my past agent sessions for the Redis timeout fix."
* "What did I do on the `payments-v2` branch last week?"

## Run a capture by hand

```bash theme={null}
npx @alikeai/setup --sweep
```

If a capture is already running, you see `Another sweep is already running.` Wait, and try again.

If the machine is not paired, capture saves copies on your machine but does not upload them. The next capture after pairing uploads them.


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