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BERD TASK · 0006 · SHAPE THE WORKSPACE

Keep sessions in order

A session is one conversation with an agent — "chat" is the same object in everyday words. After a month you will have hundreds. This page is the six moves that keep them findable: rename, move, fork, archive, search, export.

Steps at a glance

  1. Rename, move, fork or archive a chat
  2. Find anything with search
  3. Set auto-archive rules in Settings
  4. Export a session, and import one by command
  5. Open a session in its own window
  6. Restore an archived chat by sending to it

1. Rename, move, fork or archive a chat

Every chat carries an options menu. Four actions matter:

  • Rename it as soon as it has a purpose. Berd's own titles are a starting point, not a filing system.
  • Move it into a project when the work turns out to have a home. Chats started as "general chat without project context" can be adopted later.
  • Fork it to try a different path without losing the original. Two forms exist: duplicating the whole session (the toast says Duplicated {title}) and Fork session from here on a specific message, which branches at that point.
  • Archive it when it is done. Archiving is reversible and is the normal end of a chat's life.

Archiving a chat that created Git worktrees or branches asks a second question — Archive chat and remove its worktrees? — and the action is Archive and remove: local files and changes in those Goose-created worktrees are discarded. Read that dialog. It is the one archive that is not free.

Since v0.6.3, search covers every session you have, not only the ones the sidebar has loaded. Two routes:

  • Cmd+K opens a quick switcher — type to fuzzy-match session titles and press Enter to jump.
  • Session History has a full search box with filters: active or archived, one or more projects, list or grid view, and a timeline to jump to a date.

Search scope is stated on the page: titles, agents, projects and dates always; conversation text once you have typed at least two characters, and it tells you how many conversations it has searched so far. Toggle Archived to include archived sessions — the empty state reminds you that archived sessions may hold the match you want. If message search fails, Berd falls back to metadata matches and says so.

[SCREENSHOT: T06-01 — session history with filters]

[SCREENSHOT: T06-02 — Cmd+K search]

3. Set auto-archive rules in Settings

The archive section of Settings has one rule: Archive inactive chats after a period without a message — never, 1, 7, 14, 30 or 90 days. Turning it on asks for confirmation, because from then on Berd archives without prompting. Chats pinned to Home are never archived automatically, which is the intended way to protect the handful you keep returning to.

For consulting work, 30 days is a reasonable default: an engagement chat quiet for a month is finished or forgotten, and either way it belongs in the archive where search can still reach it.

[SCREENSHOT: T06-03 — archive rules]

4. Export a session, and import one by command

A session's card has Export…. What file it produces, and whether another Berd can open it, is not described in the sources; that is one of the questions for the A4 session. Import runs the other way through a command: Session History offers Copy import command, you run it, then refresh Session History. Large imports take a while and show phases (reading the file, sending to Berd, refreshing); a session can be too large to import from the app at all, and an import that disconnects mid-way leaves its error only in the Berd logs.

Export the sessions you may need to cite — a decision that was reasoned out with an agent, a draft history a client may ask about. The rest can stay in the app's own store.

[SCREENSHOT: T06-04 — export/import]

5. Open a session in its own window

Open in new window gives a chat its own window. Use it for a session you want beside another — a source-reading chat on one side, the drafting chat on the other — instead of flipping. Artifact actions work in popped-out windows again since v0.6.4.

6. Restore an archived chat by sending to it

Since v0.6.4, sending a message to an archived chat restores it to the active list before the message goes. So the fastest un-archive is to open the chat from the archive and continue talking. Nothing about the conversation is lost by archiving; it is a filing state, not a deletion.

Last checked: Berd v0.6.4, 2026-09-11 — read from source and release notes, not yet tested in the app.

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Guide built with Berd, Claude and Codex · verified against Berd v0.6.4, 2026-09-11 · read from source, not yet tested in the app · Buzz Guide · About · not affiliated with Block