find-cc-tool-output

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Recover the full, untruncated output of any tool call from a Claude Code session by searching the on-disk transcripts. Useful when the CLI's +N lines (ctrl+o to expand) indicator can't actually expand -- the underlying transcript JSONL stores the complete payload, and this script pulls it back out.

Claude Code records every session as a JSONL file under ~/.claude/projects/<encoded-cwd>/<uuid>.jsonl. Each tool_result entry holds the full stdout/stderr verbatim; the truncation you see in the UI is a display cap, not storage. Pass any unique substring of the output you remember and the script will find the matching entry and print it.

Quick start

$ find-cc-tool-output 'PARENS ACRONYMS'
landings on disk: 19

=== PARENS ACRONYMS in landing titles ===
  'OCI'           3 hit(s)
    commerce_commerce-api :: Inventory Availability (OCI) :: inventory-availability
    ...

When all matches share the same body (the common case -- e.g. you ran the same command twice), the body is printed to stdout. When bodies differ, each unique body is listed on stderr with all its locations:

$ find-cc-tool-output 'PARENS ACRONYMS'
[INF][find-cc-tool-output] 3 unique output(s) across 5 occurrence(s) (pick one with --match, narrow with --session/--dir, or pass --all):
  [1] 1 occurrence(s):
    -Users-me--x/abc123...  L34
      "first variant snippet..."
  [2] 2 occurrence(s):
    -Users-me--x/def456...  L42
    -Users-me--x-repo-foo/...  L408
      "second variant snippet..."
  [3] 1 occurrence(s):
    -Users-me--x/abc123...  L260
      "third variant snippet..."

Pick one with --match N (1-based), narrow with --session/--dir, or pass --all to dump every unique body.

Common examples

Pick a specific output from the listing:

find-cc-tool-output --match 2 'PARENS ACRONYMS'

Narrow to a renamed session (custom titles set with /rename are searchable by name):

find-cc-tool-output -s 'dsc-scrape audit' 'landings on disk'

Narrow to one project directory (absolute path, encoded automatically):

find-cc-tool-output -d /x 'sips -Z'

Narrow by session UUID (UUIDs work too -- copy from the file path):

find-cc-tool-output -s 1d3bb58c-4011-4672-9c7d-2c95b2ff39f5 'landings on disk'

Dump every unique body (instead of listing):

find-cc-tool-output --all 'curl -fSsiL'

How matching works

The script walks every *.jsonl under ~/.claude/projects/, parses each line, and inspects entries whose shape is:

{"type":"user","message":{"content":[{"type":"tool_result","content":[{"text":"..."}]}]}}

The text (or, for older transcripts, the string-form content) is decoded and tested for the substring. Matches are then deduplicated by exact body text -- if a command was run multiple times and produced byte-identical output, those occurrences collapse into one group whose locations all appear together.

Friendly session names come from custom-title events recorded when you run /rename. The latest one wins, so if you've renamed a session multiple times, only the current title resolves.

Self-match filtering

This script's own listing output starts with [INF][find-cc-tool-output]. When that listing is captured by a later tool call (you ran the script earlier in a session and now the transcript contains the listing), it would re-match on subsequent runs with the same substring. By default those are filtered out; pass --include-meta if you actually want them.

Reference

All options

Flag	Description
`-s, --session <name\|uuid>`	Limit to one session. Friendly names (set via `/rename`) are resolved by latest `customTitle` event
`-d, --dir <path>`	Limit to one project directory. Accepts absolute paths (encoded automatically) or the already-encoded basename
`-m, --match <N>`	Print the Nth unique output from a multi-match listing (1-based). Mutex with `--all`
`-a, --all`	Dump every unique body, separated by headers
`-i, --include-meta`	Don't filter out this script's own listing output
`-v, --verbose`	Verbose progress output
`-h, --help`	Show help message

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
`0`	Match found and printed (or all dumped)
`1`	No matches
`2`	Usage error, or multiple unique outputs without `--match`/`--all`
`3`	Missing dependency

Dependencies

python3 (for JSONL parsing)

Warnings

Encoded basenames and --dir. Project directory basenames start with - (e.g. -Users-me--x), which collides with the short-flag bundling syntax. Use the = form for the encoded basename:

find-cc-tool-output --dir=-Users-me--x 'foo'    # works
find-cc-tool-output --dir -Users-me--x 'foo'    # parsed as bundled flags

Absolute paths (--dir /x) are encoded internally and have no such issue -- prefer them.

Substring matching is literal. The substring is compared against the decoded JSON text value, so anything you'd see in the terminal -- including embedded newlines -- matches as-is. Substrings containing literal backslashes (rare in tool output) may need escaping.