Keep history up to date

Mash searches an index of your chats. Searching does not scan the provider’s history files, and starting the dashboard does not refresh them.

Refresh now

mash index
mash status

Indexing skips unchanged input and processes new or changed history. It shows progress as it works. Check the final result: an incomplete scan or failed shared publication can leave work pending.

Keep refreshing while you work

Run this in a separate terminal:

mash index --watch

It indexes once, then refreshes after history changes settle. Leave the process running; Ctrl-C lets the active pass finish and stops watching. Closing the terminal stops ongoing updates.

Existing provider, age, and local/shared settings still apply. To include older history as you work:

mash index --watch --all-history

For a permanent age setting, edit your configuration. Do not combine --watch with --full.

What the agent plugin does automatically

The history plugin starts a low-priority catch-up index at session start, at most once every ten minutes. The agent does not wait for it. If another writer is busy, that attempt exits without changes.

This is useful for catching up between sessions. Use the watcher when you want updates during a long-running conversation. Set MASH_AUTO_INDEX=off in the agent’s environment to disable the session-start catch-up.

Understand freshness warnings

A search may warn that no watcher is active or that provider coverage is incomplete or unverified. It can still return useful retained history.

• Run mash index to refresh now.
• Check the indexing result for errors.
• Keep a watcher running if you need ongoing updates.

A running watcher is not proof that every source was read successfully. If the warning follows an upgrade or mentions a schema mismatch, use the upgrade guide; ordinary indexing cannot migrate the database.

Across machines

Each machine must index and publish its own history. Run mash status --shared to inspect publication state. If a shared publication is pending, restore the connection and retry mash index.

See multi-machine setup.

The dashboard refreshes its chat list periodically but keeps a transcript you’re reading stable until you request an update. See dashboard refresh behavior.