backup-transcripts - SKILL.md Agent Skill

name: Backup Transcripts description: This skill should be used when the user asks to "backup transcripts", "archive sessions", "save session history", "backup before Claude deletes", "preserve transcripts", or mentions protecting session data from deletion.

Backup Claude Code Transcripts

Archive all Claude Code session transcripts as gzip files before Claude Code deletes them. Transcripts are ephemeral — Claude Code periodically cleans up old .jsonl files. This skill preserves them in ~/.crispy/recall/archive/.

When to Use

Before any operation that might lose transcript data
Periodically to ensure new sessions are backed up
When the user mentions transcript preservation or data loss concerns

Usage

${SKILL_ROOT}/scripts/backup-transcripts.sh

What It Does

Scans all .jsonl transcripts in ~/.claude/projects/
Compresses each to ~/.crispy/recall/archive/<project>__<session>.jsonl.gz
Skips files already archived (idempotent — safe to run repeatedly)
Reports counts: new, skipped, errors, total archive size

Notes

Compressed transcripts achieve 85-95% size reduction (JSONL is highly compressible)
Archives are named <project-hash>__<session-uuid>.jsonl.gz for uniqueness
The archive survives even after Claude Code deletes the originals
Future: these archives will feed a deep-index FTS5 search (see recall-coverage-gaps.md)