Setting the skill. One moment.
Skills
Skill 6 of 17
Find and resume interrupted Copilot CLI sessions using session_store queries
2 minutes · 373 words · 11 sections
Install
npx skills add microsoft/waza --skill session-recoverynpx skills add microsoft/wazaThe first command installs just this skill, by the name in its SKILL.md; the second installs the whole repository.
Squad agents run in Copilot CLI sessions that can be interrupted — terminal crashes, network drops, machine restarts, or accidental window closes. When this happens, in-progress work may be left in a partially-completed state: branches with uncommitted changes, issues marked in-progress with no active agent, or checkpoints that were never finalized.
Copilot CLI stores session history in a SQLite database called session_store (read-only, accessed via the sql tool with database: "session_store"). This skill teaches agents how to query that store to detect interrupted sessions and resume work.
Query the sessions table filtered by time window. Include the last checkpoint to understand where the session stopped:
SELECT
s.id,
s.summary,
s.cwd,
s.branch,
s.updated_at,
(SELECT title FROM checkpoints
WHERE session_id = s.id
ORDER BY checkpoint_number DESC LIMIT 1) AS last_checkpoint
FROM sessions s
WHERE s.updated_at >= datetime('now', '-24 hours')
ORDER BY s.updated_at DESC;Automated agents (monitors, keep-alive, heartbeat) create high-volume sessions that obscure human-initiated work. Exclude them:
SELECT s.id, s.summary, s.cwd, s.updated_at,
(SELECT title FROM checkpoints
WHERE session_id = s.id
ORDER BY checkpoint_number DESC LIMIT 1) AS last_checkpoint
FROM sessions s
WHERE s.updated_at >= datetime('now', '-24 hours')
AND s.id NOT IN (
SELECT DISTINCT t.session_id FROM turns t
WHERE t.turn_index = 0
AND (LOWER(t.user_message) LIKE '%keep-alive%'
OR LOWER(t.user_message) LIKE '%heartbeat%')
)
ORDER BY s.updated_at DESC;Use the search_index FTS5 table for keyword search. Expand queries with synonyms since this is keyword-based, not semantic:
SELECT DISTINCT s.id, s.summary, s.cwd, s.updated_at
FROM search_index si
JOIN sessions s ON si.session_id = s.id
WHERE search_index MATCH 'auth OR login OR token OR JWT'
AND s.updated_at >= datetime('now', '-48 hours')
ORDER BY s.updated_at DESC
LIMIT 10;SELECT s.id, s.summary, s.updated_at,
(SELECT title FROM checkpoints
WHERE session_id = s.id
ORDER BY checkpoint_number DESC LIMIT 1) AS last_checkpoint
FROM sessions s
WHERE s.cwd LIKE '%my-project%'
AND s.updated_at >= datetime('now', '-48 hours')
ORDER BY s.updated_at DESC;Before resuming, inspect what the session was doing:
-- Conversation turns
SELECT turn_index, substr(user_message, 1, 200) AS ask, timestamp
FROM turns WHERE session_id = 'SESSION_ID' ORDER BY turn_index;
-- Checkpoint progress
SELECT checkpoint_number, title, overview
FROM checkpoints WHERE session_id = 'SESSION_ID' ORDER BY checkpoint_number;
-- Files touched
SELECT file_path, tool_name
FROM session_files WHERE session_id = 'SESSION_ID';
-- Linked PRs/issues/commits
SELECT ref_type, ref_value
FROM session_refs WHERE session_id = 'SESSION_ID';Find sessions that were working on issues but may not have completed:
SELECT DISTINCT s.id, s.branch, s.summary, s.updated_at,
sr.ref_type, sr.ref_value
FROM sessions s
JOIN session_refs sr ON s.id = sr.session_id
WHERE sr.ref_type = 'issue'
AND s.updated_at >= datetime('now', '-48 hours')
ORDER BY s.updated_at DESC;Cross-reference with gh issue list --label "status:in-progress" to find issues that are marked in-progress but have no active session.
Once you have the session ID:
# Resume directly
copilot --resume SESSION_IDRecovering from a crash during PR creation:
Finding yesterday’s work on a feature:
MATCH with special characters without escaping — wrap paths in double quotesmain, last pushed 24 September 2026.SKILL.md, not by matching a directory convention. 6 distinct layouts observed: .copilot/skills/*/SKILL.md, .github/skills/*/SKILL.md, */skill.md, .squad/*/skill.md, skills/*/SKILL.md, */SKILL.md./microsoft/waza.md, and each skill at its own .md URL.