Live screens and history
The live screen answers “what is visible now?” History answers “what was output before?” Full-screen programs move cursors, erase and redraw, so neither is simply an append-only text log.
Choose the right source
| Need | Use |
|---|---|
| Current editor display | Live terminal or capture --live |
| Earlier output | TUI history or default capture |
| Search local retained history | history search TERMINAL_ID PATTERN |
| Complete build report | Program-written file, then transfer |
Capture’s --cols sets projection width and --lines limits returned rows. They do not resize the remote PTY. Projection width can change wrapping.
Retention and gaps
Daemon size, age and compression policies govern history. Old data may be evicted. A drop output-buffer policy can produce explicit gaps; do not interpret surrounding text as an uninterrupted record.
Compression affects storage, not program success. Changing retention cannot recover deleted data.
Search boundaries
CLI history search currently targets the local daemon and supports text, glob and RE2 expressions. For remote tasks, use endpoint-aware capture or search on the owning host.
No matches may mean absent text, expired history, formatting differences or an incorrect target. Important reports should not rely solely on a search result.
Sensitive content
History can contain commands, paths, business output or accidentally printed secrets. Redact shared captures. See daemon configuration and TUI history.