AI Chat Explorer

Languages: English | 繁體中文

AI Chat Explorer is a local-first desktop app built with Tauri 2, Rust, and vanilla JavaScript for browsing AI chat history. It currently supports Claude (~/.claude/projects), Codex CLI (~/.codex), and VS Code / GitHub Copilot Chat workspace chat sessions.

It is designed for people who want a faster and safer way to inspect local AI workspaces without uploading session data to a third-party service.

✨ Highlights

• Local-first by default. Session data stays on your machine.
• Supports multiple AI sources: Claude, Codex CLI, and VS Code / GitHub Copilot Chat, with a source toggle to filter by provider.
• Rust backend for source discovery, JSON/JSONL parsing, rollout replay, and path validation.
• Timeline viewer for conversations, tool activity, thinking blocks, and system events.
• Tree view for parent sessions and subagent sessions.
• Built-in project and message search.
• Safe deletion flow with project impact preview and session undo window.
• Bilingual UI: en-US and zh-Hant-TW.
• Theme modes: auto, light, and dark.

🧩 Current Features

• Browse Claude projects detected from ~/.claude/projects.
• Browse Codex CLI projects detected from ~/.codex/sessions.
• Browse VS Code / GitHub Copilot Chat sessions detected from VS Code User/workspaceStorage/{hash}/chatSessions.
• Source toggle to show all sessions, Claude only, Codex only, or VS Code only.
• Source badges on project and session list entries to identify the AI provider at a glance.
• Infer a readable project name from the original working directory when available.
• Open sessions and memory files from the same project workspace.
• Display session metadata including model, token usage, web tool usage, and estimated duration.
• Render Codex session timelines including chat messages, thinking blocks, function calls, and system events.
• Replay Codex rollout records so event_msg user and assistant messages render as normal chat bubbles.
• Render VS Code / GitHub Copilot Chat timelines from .json and .jsonl session records.
• Keep tool_use and tool_result content grouped in a readable timeline.
• Toggle visibility for system events, tool calls, and thinking content independently.
• Search across the project list and within the selected timeline.
• Show subagent sessions under their parent session with expand/collapse controls.
• Open the project folder from the context menu.
• Copy session IDs from the session context menu.
• Preview delete impact before removing a project.
• Queue session deletion with a short undo grace period.

📸 Screenshots

🛠 Tech Stack

• Desktop shell: Tauri 2
• Backend: Rust 2021
• Frontend: vanilla HTML, CSS, and ESM JavaScript
• Test stack: node --test, JSDOM, Rust unit tests

📁 Project Layout

src/         Frontend app (HTML, CSS, JS, i18n, theme logic)
src-tauri/   Rust backend, Tauri commands, packaging config
tests/       Frontend unit tests and JSDOM UI tests
docs/        Product and UI notes

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js 22 or later
• Rust stable toolchain
• Tauri system prerequisites: https://tauri.app/start/prerequisites/

Install Dependencies

npm install

Run In Desktop Mode

npm run tauri dev

Run In Browser Preview

npm run dev:web

The browser preview is useful for frontend iteration, but features that depend on Tauri APIs such as local filesystem commands and folder opening require the desktop runtime.

✅ Testing

Run frontend tests:

node --test tests/*.mjs

Run focused UI flow checks:

npm run test:ui

test:ui currently runs a JSDOM-based UI regression suite (not a full real-browser E2E suite), mainly covering delete/undo flows, context menu actions, and timeline visibility toggles.

Run Rust backend tests:

cargo test --manifest-path src-tauri/Cargo.toml

🔒 Security Model

• The backend validates requested paths against the allowed root for each source before reading, parsing, or deleting.
• Claude sessions are discovered from %USERPROFILE%\\.claude\\projects on Windows and ~/.claude/projects on Unix-like systems.
• Codex CLI sessions are discovered from ~/.codex.
• VS Code / GitHub Copilot Chat records are discovered from VS Code workspace storage and are treated as read-only in the current UI.
• Claude project deletion removes the full project directory tree.
• Codex project deletion removes matching Codex session files for that project.
• Session deletion is source-specific and only exposed for sources with backend deletion support.

🤝 Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Prefer small, focused changes with clear reproduction steps and expected behavior.

📄 License

MIT