whatwasit 0.1.2

Local-first semantic search for your shell history. Search by intent, not exact text. No cloud, no API keys.

whatwasit

Local-first semantic search for your shell history.

Search by what you were trying to do, not the exact command you typed — and nothing ever leaves your machine.

whatwasit "how did I fix that nginx issue"

Returns the session of commands you actually ran (cd, vim, systemctl reload nginx) weeks ago, even though you never typed "fix" or "issue".

Features

• Intent-based recall — searches whole command sessions, not isolated lines
• Session grouping — reconstructs working directory and groups commands by time
• Hybrid reranking — boosts exact tool-name and flag matches when your query contains them, without hurting natural-language queries
• Fully offline — ONNX embedding model on CPU; no cloud, no API keys
• Non-destructive — reads your existing history files; never modifies them

Install

pip install whatwasit

Upgrade an existing install:

pip install -U whatwasit

Requirements: Python 3.9+ and ~100 MB disk for the embedding model (downloaded once on first run).

Quick start

# Build the search index from your shell history
whatwasit index

# Interactive REPL (default when run with no arguments)
whatwasit

# One-shot search
whatwasit "that time I set up passwordless ssh"

Usage

# Refresh the index after new history accumulates
whatwasit index

# Force a full rebuild
whatwasit index --rebuild

# Adjust session grouping window (default: 300 seconds)
whatwasit index --window 600

# Plain output for scripts and piping
whatwasit "docker volume that wouldn't persist" --plain

# Return more results
whatwasit "nginx config" -k 20

# Keep the embedder warm for faster repeated queries (optional)
whatwasit daemon start
whatwasit daemon status
whatwasit daemon stop

TUI / REPL

Running whatwasit with no arguments opens a persistent REPL with a bottom input bar. Type a natural-language query and press Enter to search; results update in place with matched commands highlighted. Directory and timestamp appear as dim metadata under each result. Ranks (#1, #2, …) and confidence badges (strong / medium / weak) replace raw scores. When the top result is below the low-confidence threshold (default 0.40), a soft warning banner appears without hiding results.

Key / command	Action
j / k or arrows	Navigate results
Enter (on a result)	Copy matched command(s) to clipboard
n or /more	Show more results
/help	Show help
/quit or q	Quit

One-shot whatwasit "query" opens the same TUI layout with pre-fetched results. Use --plain or --headless for line-oriented output.

Configuration

Optional config file: ~/.config/whatwasit/config.toml

output_mode = "tui"              # "tui" or "plain"
tui_page_size = 5
low_confidence_threshold = 0.40
use_daemon = true                # use warm daemon when running (if started)

CLI flags override config values (for example, --plain forces plain output).

Data directory: ~/.local/share/whatwasit/ (whatwasit.db + index.usearch)

If you indexed under the older hist app name, that data path is still detected automatically — no re-index required.

History sources: ~/.zsh_history, ~/.bash_history, and Atuin (if installed). All sources are read non-destructively.

How it works

1. Parse — reads shell history into timestamped commands
2. Group — clusters commands into sessions by time gap and working directory
3. Embed — encodes each session locally with all-MiniLM-L6-v2 (~22 MB ONNX, CPU-only)
4. Index — stores vectors in a local index with SQLite metadata
5. Search — embeds your query, finds nearest sessions, highlights matching commands within each session

Privacy

• All search and indexing run on your machine
• No network calls after the one-time model download
• Your shell history is never uploaded anywhere

Feedback

Bug reports and feature requests: github.com/ThorOdinson246/whatwasit/issues

License

MIT — see LICENSE.