Core Concepts

Capture

Capture is the act of turning terminal text into structured data that sivtr can browse, search, select, or copy.

sivtr supports three practical capture paths:

• stdin pipe: command | sivtr;
• subprocess wrapper: sivtr run <command>;
• shell session hook: sivtr init <shell> followed by normal terminal use.

Pipe and run mode are immediate. Shell integration builds a session log over time.

Session log

A session log is a JSONL file containing command entries. Each entry stores:

• prompt;
• command;
• output;
• optional ANSI-preserved prompt;
• optional ANSI-preserved output.

The plain versions are used for stable copying, searching, and parsing. ANSI versions are kept when available so --ansi can preserve colors.

Command block

A command block is the input and output for one command:

PS C:\repo> cargo test
running 42 tests
test result: ok

sivtr copy can operate on the whole block, only the input, only the output, or the bare command.

Selector

A selector chooses recent command blocks or Codex blocks.

Selector	Meaning
1	Latest matching block
2	Second latest matching block
2..4	Range of recent blocks

Selectors are intentionally relative to recency, because the most common task is to reuse what just happened.

Open mode

Captured output can open in either:

• the built-in TUI browser;
• an external editor.

Configure this with:

[general]
open_mode = "tui"

or:

[general]
open_mode = "editor"