Live Recall

Wait for what another session does next.

Total Recall searches what already happened. Live Recall waits for what happens next. Contextify indexes every Claude Code and Codex transcript turn within seconds, so one session can block on another session's live narration without writing a polling loop.

The signal is early. A worktree says "I'm about to push" in its transcript minutes before the PR exists, and Live Recall lets a waiting session wake on that sentence.

When to use it

Gate on another worktree

Block a dependent step until another session announces a milestone, then start your own work the moment it does.

Wake, then confirm

Wake on the transcript signal that a PR is coming, then confirm with gh before you act on it.

Stream events

Tail new matching entries as they land and hand the wait to your assistant's event loop instead of blocking.

The three verbs

Live Recall is three commands on the Contextify CLI. Each takes a SQLite FTS query and reads the local index.

Verb	What it does
`contextify watch <query>`	Blocks until one new entry matches, prints it, exits 0. Exits 124 on timeout. Default timeout 60s; pass `--timeout 90m`.
`contextify tail`	Streams one JSON line per new matching event. Shaped for an assistant's event loop. Exits cleanly on Ctrl-C.
`contextify since <cursor>`	Returns everything new since a cursor mark, plus the next cursor. Good for grabbing the delta when something else wakes you.

Before a long wait, check how live the index is with contextify status, which reports the ingester lag and the newest-ingest time. If ingestion is behind, widen the timeout or pair the wait with an artifact check.

Good prompts

Instead of	Try
"Keep checking if wb3 is done."	"Use Live Recall to wait until wb3 opens the PR for HOT-4018, then confirm with gh."
"Poll for the other agent."	"Watch for the moment the other worktree starts on the registry refactor, then begin the dependent setup."
"Tell me when something happens."	"Tail the transcripts for HOT-4018 or HOT-4049 and wake me on the first match."

How it works

Live Recall depends on the Contextify CLI. The verbs poll the local Contextify database every few hundred milliseconds and return when a new entry matches, so you call one command and get one result instead of writing a loop.

The wait is only as live as the index. contextify status reports ingesterLagSecondsP95 and newestIngestTimestamp so a waiting agent can decide whether the channel is current enough before it parks.

Live Recall reads the same local index as Total Recall, in the opposite direction in time. For what stays local and what can sync, see Privacy and data and Ingestion and syncing.

Try it from the terminal

The verbs ship with the Contextify CLI. Confirm the CLI is on your PATH:

contextify --version

Then start a wait. In one terminal, watch for a phrase that another session is about to write:

contextify watch '"HOT-4018" AND push' --timeout 30m --json

It blocks until a matching entry lands, prints that entry, and exits 0. If nothing matches before the timeout, it exits 124, so a shell caller can tell a timeout apart from a match. To stream instead of block:

contextify tail --query '"HOT-4018"' --exclude-this-session --json

Use --exclude-this-session on either verb so a watcher does not match its own narration. When you are waiting on another worktree, watch machine-wide and let the query anchor scope the match; reach for --this-worktree only to watch your own lane.

Use it from your assistant

The Contextify CLI installs a live-recall skill alongside Total Recall, so Claude Code and Codex compose these verbs for you. The Mac app installs it when you set up the CLI. On the App Store build or Linux, add it with the CLI:

The Contextify app set this up when you installed it. If the skill is ever missing, repair it from Settings → CLI → Install / Repair CLI.

brew install PeterPym/contextify/contextify-query
contextify install-plugin

curl -fsSL https://contextify.sh/install.sh | sh
contextify install-skill

Start a fresh Claude Code or Codex session and type /live. When the assistant suggests live-recall, the skill is ready. Then ask for a wait in plain language:

Use Live Recall to wait until wb3 opens the PR for HOT-4018, then confirm with gh.

The assistant composes watch with its event loop, wakes on the match, and confirms with the artifact before it proceeds.

Last updated: June 22, 2026