zettcode-recap

A ZettCode plugin. It adds /recap, and writes one on its own when you step away.

A recap is one sentence about where the session is: the goal, what is done, and the next thing to do. It is for a reader coming back to a long conversation — the model's own context is not touched, and neither the question nor the answer is stored as part of the conversation.

• /recap writes one now, whatever the clock says. It needs a request to have finished. While the model answers, the pinned row says Recap … writing, and Ctrl-C or Escape stops it; the answer follows as a quoted message.
• On its own, once no new turn has started for long enough and the conversation is worth summarising: at least 3 messages you typed, and at least 2 since the last recap. The delay is min(after_seconds, 0.8 × cache_ttl_seconds), which is 180 seconds by default (the provider's prompt cache is likely cold by then, so waiting longer only costs more). Any new turn cancels a recap that is waiting or being written: it would be news about a conversation that has moved on. It is the reader's own activity that is measured, not the window — somebody reading the last answer is still there, and somebody who switched to another application after a turn is as idle as one reading.

The summary is requested with cache="read": the conversation's warm prompt-cache prefix is reused, and the recap's own words are not written into the cache. It runs with no tools, a 60-second deadline, and a prompt that asks for under 40 words and no markdown.

Settings

Each setting has a default and can be overridden in config.toml; your value wins:

[plugins.recap]
after_seconds = 180       # how long no new turn may start
cache_ttl_seconds = 300   # the provider's prompt-cache lifetime; the delay is 0.8 of it
min_messages = 3          # messages you typed before a recap is worth writing
min_since_recap = 2       # and messages since the last one

A value of the wrong type is refused when the plugin loads, naming the table and the key.

The automatic recap needs nothing of the terminal but turns; the focus hook the shell offers is not used. A recap waiting when the program exits ends with it.

Install

From a checkout of this repository:

uv tool install --force --with ./plugins/zettcode-recap zettcode

or, with pip in the environment ZettCode runs in:

pip install ./plugins/zettcode-recap

There is no zettcode[recap] extra yet: the plugin has not been released, and an extra that names a package no index carries would break pip install "zettcode[recap]". The release workflow is in place (recap-v*), and the extra lands with the first release.

It runs on ZettCode 0.3 and later (zettcode>=0.3,<0.4), whose terminal group has the turn hooks this plugin is built on.