/sessions TUI only shows recent sessions, ignores historical ones

Description

The TUI /sessions picker only shows ~5 recent sessions despite having 584 root conversations in the DB going back to November 2025.

Root Cause

The TUI bootstrap in packages/opencode/src/cli/cmd/tui/context/sync.tsx calls:

const start = Date.now() - 30 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000
const sessionListPromise = sdk.client.session.list({ start: start })

This hits the /session endpoint, which calls Session.list() in packages/opencode/src/session/index.ts. Problem is child session dilution:

Bootstrap does NOT pass roots: true — mixes root sessions and child sessions (subagent forks)
Session.list() defaults limit to 100 (input?.limit ?? 100)
Server returns 100 most recently updated sessions — roots + children mixed
TUI dialog (dialog-session-list.tsx) filters client-side: .filter(x => x.parentID === undefined)
For users who spawn subagents/tasks heavily, children outnumber roots — 95 of 100 returned are children, only 5 roots visible

WorkspaceContext.workspaceID is undefined for TUI requests (no x-opencode-workspace header), so no filtering applied. Affects any user with child sessions (subagent forks, compaction, etc.) — higher child:root ratio = fewer roots shown.

Related: #13877 (same symptom), #15678

Evidence

DB: 584 root sessions for my project, 8,976 total sessions (incl. children)
In 30-day window: 2,501 child vs 255 root (9.8:1 ratio)
Top 100 by time_updated (server return): 95 children, 5 roots
Queried with: sqlite3 ~/.local/share/opencode/opencode.db

Proposed Fix

One-line fix in sync.tsx bootstrap — add roots: true:

// Before:
const sessionListPromise = sdk.client.session.list({ start: start })
// After:
const sessionListPromise = sdk.client.session.list({ start: start, roots: true })

Server applies WHERE parent_id IS NULL server-side — all 100 slots go to actual conversations.

Alt: Bump limit or drop client-side filter (server handles it).

OpenCode version: 1.2.18

Steps to reproduce:

Use OpenCode and spawn subagents / tasks heavily
Open TUI and run /sessions
Notice only ~5 recent sessions appear despite hundreds existing
Verify: sqlite3 ~/.local/share/opencode/opencode.db "SELECT CASE WHEN parent_id IS NULL THEN 'ROOT' ELSE 'CHILD' END as type, COUNT(*) FROM (SELECT * FROM session ORDER BY time_updated DESC LIMIT 100) GROUP BY type;"

Operating System: Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS (WSL2)

Terminal: xterm-256color / zsh

This issue might be a duplicate of existing issues. Please check:

TUI /sessions picker only shows recent sessions #13877: TUI /sessions picker only shows recent sessions — nearly identical title and same symptom
opencode sessions command fails to list historical sessions when run inside a Git repository #15678: opencode sessions command fails to list historical sessions when run inside a Git repository — same symptom (missing historical sessions)
session_list tool only returns current session, not all historical sessions #14668: session_list tool only returns current session (closed, referenced in this issue) — same root cause

You may also want to coordinate with the assignees on those issues to avoid duplicate work.

To add more context, this used to work just fine around 1-2 weeks ago. So a recent release must have changed the behaviour I guess

@dinhphieu

@dinhphieu can you check #13877 and see whether that problem is same as the one you're reporting here? we should probably consolidate this into that one, if yes

Hit by this on v1.4.6 — confirming same root cause.

Environment:

OpenCode v1.4.6 (Homebrew, macOS)
Project with 90 root sessions / 693 subagent children / 783 total

Symptom: TUI /sessions shows only 4 root sessions (all from today). All 86 older roots — including labeled conversations from the last month — are invisible.

Confirmed mechanism: Exactly as described in the original report.

In packages/opencode/src/cli/cmd/tui/context/sync.tsx at v1.4.6 (line 356-358):

const start = Date.now() - 30 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000
const sessionListPromise = sdk.client.session
  .list({ start: start })

No roots: true, so the server's limit: 100 gets saturated by subagent children. In my case:

Last 30 days: 502 sessions total for the project
Top 100 by time_updated: 96 children, 4 roots
TUI then filters client-side with .filter(x => x.parentID === undefined) → 4 visible

The moment you use subagents heavily (oh-my-opencode, explore/oracle/librarian agents, etc.), the child:root ratio blows out and the TUI session list becomes effectively useless.

Workaround: Bump time_updated on root sessions so they all fit in the top-100 window:

UPDATE session
SET time_updated = (strftime('%s','now') * 1000) - (ROWID % 1000000)
WHERE project_id = '<your-project-id>'
  AND parent_id IS NULL
  AND time_archived IS NULL;

Destructive to original ordering data but immediate relief.

Also relates to #13877, #16733, #17389.

I opened PR #23276 to address the child-session dilution path discussed here: #23276

It fixes the same confirmed root cause (mixed root+child session list getting limited before root filtering), but I scoped the change to dialog-session-list.tsx instead of changing the global bootstrap in sync.tsx.

Reason for the narrower patch: after tracing current dev, sync.data.session is also used by TUI session-parent / session-child navigation, so changing the shared bootstrap list to roots-only would affect a wider surface area. This PR keeps child-session data available for those flows while making Switch Session request root sessions directly for both the default list and search.

The repro I used locally matched the pattern in this issue: the missing root session was rank 4 among root sessions but rank 152 among all sessions because 148 newer child sessions came first.

I opened #26432 for this.

It avoids the earlier broad-bootstrap side effect by leaving the shared sync.data.session list unchanged and querying root sessions only inside the session switch dialog. It also avoids the 30-day bootstrap window for the default dialog list, preserves the existing scope/path filter, and includes a focused unit test for the query shape.

Verified locally on the current dev base with:

bun test test/cli/tui/dialog-session-list.test.ts test/server/session-list.test.ts test/server/httpapi-sdk.test.ts --timeout 30000
bun run typecheck
bun run build

Authorship disclosure: prepared with AI assistance.

#26432 seems to address this without changing the shared bootstrap list, so it avoids the broader TUI parent/child session navigation concern from earlier fixes.

The web UI has this same bug, and the in-flight fix #26432 is TUI-only — it won't cover the web client.

Confirmed on opencode 1.16.2 (opencode serve, accessed from a browser/phone). The web client fetches GET /session without roots=true and filters children client-side (sessions.filter(s => !s.parentID)). So the server's default limit=100 is spent on a mix of root + subagent sessions, and roots get evicted under heavy subagent use — the same root cause described here.

Measured on a store with 241 root + ~1032 child sessions:

GET /session                    -> 100 total =  36 roots + 64 children
GET /session?roots=true         -> 100 total = 100 roots
GET /session?roots=true&limit=N -> all 241 roots

Only 36 of 241 roots reach the web UI, and during multi-agent bursts (last 24h here: 59 child updates vs 6 root, ~10:1) even freshly-created root sessions drop out of the window within hours and never reappear (time_updated now below the 100th-newest). Data is intact on disk throughout.

Since #26432 only touches the TUI dialog, please also have the web session list pass roots=true (the API already supports it). Happy to test a build.

fix(tui): load root sessions in session switcher (#33931)

fix(tui): load root sessions in session switcher (anomalyco#33931)

sync: merge upstream/dev catch-up (629 commits) (#31)

fix(test): resolve shell/cwd unit-test failures surfaced by GitHub-ho…

Same issue here — subagent dilution eating all the root sessions from the list.

Built a workaround: oos

It reads the OpenCode SQLite db directly, so it searches ALL sessions from
ALL projects at once — no directory scoping, no pagination limits, no
subagent dilution.

Type a keyword → real-time filter across every project
↑/↓ to pick, Enter to resume the conversation
Multi-keyword AND + ! exclusion
Zero config, single binary

https://github.com/wsaaaqqq/oos

MIT, one-liner install. Happy to take feedback.

fix(tui): load root sessions in session switcher (#33931)

fix(tui): load root sessions in session switcher (anomalyco#33931)

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/sessions TUI only shows recent sessions, ignores historical ones #16270

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/sessions TUI only shows recent sessions, ignores historical ones #16270

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github-actions commented on Mar 6, 2026

dinhphieu commented on Mar 6, 2026

CasualDeveloper commented on Apr 2, 2026

nigel-dev commented on Apr 16, 2026

jiwangyihao commented on Apr 18, 2026

codeg-old commented on May 9, 2026

EdgarSedov commented on May 30, 2026

antomicblitz commented on Jun 6, 2026

12 remaining items

wsaaaqqq commented on Jul 27, 2026

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