Built-in skill: Chat history
The chat-history built-in lets Orion's assistant search, summarize, and quote past conversations stored on your machine. Use it when you need to recall earlier decisions, instructions, or context from previous Orion sessions.
Load it with /chat-history or ask: "What did we decide about … in a previous chat?"
Where chat history is stored
Orion saves conversations in a local SQLite database:
| Platform | Path |
|---|---|
| macOS / Linux | ~/.orion/orion.db |
| Windows | %USERPROFILE%\.orion\orion.db |
The database exists only on the machine where Orion runs. It is not synced to the cloud unless you back it up yourself.
Hosted Orion at app.orion-agent.ai stores history according to that deployment; the paths above apply to local Orion installs and local app data.
What the assistant can do
With this skill loaded, the assistant can:
- List recent chats by title and date
- Search chat titles or message text for keywords
- Read messages from a specific conversation
- Summarize prior decisions or quote relevant snippets
- Read compaction summaries when a long chat was compacted
It uses read-only queries unless you explicitly ask for database maintenance (which this skill discourages).
Privacy and safety
Past chats may contain private code, file paths, credentials pasted by mistake, or sensitive context. The assistant is instructed to:
- Inspect only what your request requires
- Quote short relevant snippets, not full transcripts (unless you ask)
- Never write, delete, or repair the database while using this skill
Treat chat history search like searching your local mail archive — useful, but handle outputs carefully in shared screens.
Database structure (overview)
Three main tables:
| Table | Holds |
|---|---|
chats | Chat id, title, created/updated timestamps, optional compaction summary |
chat_messages | Ordered messages per chat (role, timestamp, JSON payload) |
subagent_sessions | Nested sub-agent run metadata linked to a chat |
Message text usually lives inside message_json as AI SDK UI message parts.
You do not need to query SQLite yourself; ask the assistant in natural language. Power users can inspect the file with any SQLite client.
Example requests
- "Find chats where we discussed the embedding model choice."
- "Summarize what we decided about the data pipeline last week."
- "Quote the exact instructions I gave for the export format in yesterday's chat."
- "List my ten most recent conversations."
If several chats match, the assistant should show candidates and ask which to open.
When history is missing
If orion.db does not exist or is empty, the assistant reports that no local chat history is available. That can happen on a fresh install, after manual deletion, or when using a different user profile on Windows.
Related
- Chat overview — how conversations work in Orion
- Tool approval and compaction — long-chat compaction
- CLI reference — mentions
orion.dbin the data directory - Built-in skills hub
Last updated May 2026.