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[FEATURE]: Making sessions first-class unlocks cheap ChatGPT Projects #4867
Description
Feature hasn't been suggested before.
- I have verified this feature I'm about to request hasn't been suggested before.
Describe the enhancement you want to request
This is a terrific project. The CLI already shows a lot of thoughtful work. One area that feels ready for the next step is how sessions are handled. They’re useful, but they’re not yet treated as first-class artifacts — something worth managing, organizing, and bringing back into active work.
The CLI already supports exporting sessions. What’s missing is the other half: a way to bring them back in. Without import, exported sessions become static snapshots rather than living project material.
The reason this matters is how people actually ideate with AI. Work doesn’t happen in one sitting. You push an idea forward, park it, return days later, pick it up again, sometimes merge it with another thread, sometimes fork it. ChatGPT’s Projects embrace that reality beautifully — long-running arcs, evolving thought, incremental drafts.
The CLI could support that same workflow with one simple capability: treating sessions as durable, user-managed assets rather than something that lives quietly in a background pseudo-cache.
I keep my personal state in version control. A flat repo with folders mirrors how Projects feel in practice. If OpenCode could:
- Allow pointing to multiple paths where session files might live
- Treat those as valid sources for opening/continuing sessions
- And show a small breadcrumb when opening one (so its origin is obvious)
…then the IDE-style workflow would click into place. Export → modify → version → import → continue. A smooth loop instead of a one-way door.
It doesn’t need to be elaborate. Even a minimal import mechanic and path list would unlock the whole pattern for people who use AI the way developers use notebooks, drafts, and branches: returning, revising, progressing.
Thanks again for sharing this project. It’s already impressive. Giving sessions a bit more weight — a bit more “first-class citizenship” — would make the CLI an even better companion for long-form, iterative thinking.
Activity
github-actions commentedon Nov 28, 2025
This issue might be a duplicate or closely related to existing feature requests. Please check:
The core of your request—treating sessions as persistent, manageable artifacts that can be imported, exported, and organized across multiple paths—aligns with these existing discussions about session forking, branching, and workspace-level session management.
Feel free to ignore if your use case requires something more specific beyond what's covered in these issues.
mlanza commentedon Nov 28, 2025
Although I'm not aware of any widely-adopted microformats for chat session data, I don't think it matters. You invent one you like. Start with a sufficient JSON structure. When formats eventually become standard, a format converter bridges the gap (e.g., PNG, JPG).
rekram1-node commentedon Nov 29, 2025
You can already import and export:
opencode export > session.json
opencode import session.json
mlanza commentedon Nov 29, 2025
I appreciate the clarification — thank you.
That said, I think the workflow could use a small bump in ergonomics. The import/export commands living outside the TUI wasn’t something I expected. When I typed
/exportinside the TUI, it produced a.mdfile that couldn’t be imported with the command you mentioned. I realize now it was treated as a “transcript,” but that connection wasn’t obvious in the moment.There’s also the issue of needing a session ID when exporting. That isn’t available inside the TUI, so I had to export the transcript just to discover the ID.
What I’m wrestling with is the workflow for saving multiple sessions to a local archive. The
/sessioncommand already lists everything with readable, natural-language names, which makes it a much more intuitive touchpoint. As a middle ground, what about adding actrl+x exportoption there? It could save the session locally in JSON using the human-friendly session name. And having a TUI/importcommand would bring some balance to the existing TUI/exportcommand. Right now there’s also a bit of mismatch between one being a transcript and the other expecting JSON.My original suggestion wasn’t just about feasibility. I was aiming for something more ergonomic — something that gives users a way to manage sessions the way ChatGPT Projects could be managed and versioned. If the friction is too high, it's hard imagining it will be used in the way I’m suggesting.
mlanza commentedon Dec 2, 2025
I take it back. We're good!