hy

hy is a small Rust CLI for recording and searching shell history in plain text log files under ~/.logs/.

It is meant to replace ad-hoc precmd or PROMPT_COMMAND snippets with a stable hy-managed hook while keeping the history files easy to inspect with grep, awk, or sed.

Features

• Records shell commands into daily text files such as ~/.logs/bash-history-2026-04-19.log
• Searches command text with hy <query>
• Filters by working directory using path expansion or partial matches with hy --folder <path>
• Supports --today, --since <days>, --limit <n>, and --json
• Supports case-insensitive search with -i / --ignore-case or HY_IGNORE_CASE=1
• Installs managed shell hooks with hy install bash or hy install zsh
• Reads the newer escaped-TSV format exactly and older space-delimited logs on a best-effort basis

Install

Build locally:

cargo build

Install into Cargo's bin directory:

cargo install --path .

If you do not want hy on your PATH, set HY_BIN in your shell before loading the hook:

export HY_BIN="$HOME/.cargo/bin/hy"

To override the log directory, set HY_LOG_DIR. Absolute paths are used as-is. Relative paths are resolved from your home directory.

export HY_LOG_DIR="$HOME/history-logs"

Shell Setup

Preview the generated hook:

hy init zsh
hy init bash

Install the managed hook into your rc file:

hy install zsh
hy install bash

hy install writes a marked block into ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc and updates that same block if you run it again. It does not need the old inline history snippet.

Usage

Search for commands containing a word:

hy cargo

Search only within the current directory tree:

hy --folder .

Search by a partial folder name anywhere in the logged cwd:

hy --folder src

Combine text search and folder filtering:

hy cargo --folder .

Make search case-insensitive:

hy cargo --ignore-case
HY_IGNORE_CASE=1 hy --folder src

Limit to recent logs:

hy cargo --today
hy cargo --since 7

Get machine-readable output:

hy cargo --json

record is meant for shell hooks, but it can also be called directly:

hy record --cwd "$PWD" --command "cargo test" --history-id 42 --shell zsh

Log Format

hy stores one escaped-TSV record per line:

2026-04-19T10:23:45+0100	/home/zimbl/project	cargo test --lib
2026-04-19T10:25:02+0100	/home/zimbl/project/src	rg history

Rules:

• Field order is timestamp<TAB>cwd<TAB>command
• Tabs, newlines, and backslashes inside values are escaped
• Files stay readable and grep-friendly
• Duplicate suppression metadata is kept in a separate hidden state file, not inside the searchable log line

You can still use plain shell tools directly:

grep cargo ~/.logs/bash-history-*.log

If you use HY_LOG_DIR, point your shell tools there instead.

Migration From Old Snippets

If you previously had a custom precmd or PROMPT_COMMAND snippet that wrote directly to ~/.logs, the migration path is:

1. Remove the old shell snippet from your rc file.
2. Install hy.
3. Run hy install zsh or hy install bash.
4. Reload your shell.

Old space-delimited log files are still searchable, but only on a best-effort basis because the original format is ambiguous when paths or commands contain spaces. New hy-written logs use the structured escaped-TSV format and are parsed exactly.

Development

Run the full test suite:

cargo test

The repository also keeps a LESSONS.md file with implementation decisions and gotchas that should persist across future tasks.