Quickstart

Hansard requires Node.js 20 or newer. Some importers also use optional system tools such as sqlite3, rg, unzip, and zstd; hansard doctor reports what is available on the current machine.

Prefer to have a coding agent complete setup? Use the copyable installation prompt. It covers installation, a 30-day import, recall, watcher startup, and verification.

Install the CLI globally.
Terminal window
```
npm install -g hansard
```
Preview setup without writing anything.
Terminal window
```
hansard init --dry-run
```
Initialize Hansard.
Terminal window
```
hansard init
```
The setup flow explains the archive model and asks about canonical local storage and privacy. While those local questions are open, an isolated child may prefetch a bounded, read-only inventory of configured provider roots; setup still performs no writes or imports before review and confirmation. Source checklists use arrow keys, Space, and Enter. Before backfill, storage preflight shows measured local source bytes, a raw-plus-derived archive planning range, destination free space, and a separate recovery reserve. Backfill stops if capacity is insufficient or cannot be verified. Same-project agent messaging and helper launches are preselected and can be unchecked. Optional remote sync is offered only after the local setup is ready.
Verify the installation.
Terminal window
```
hansard init --status
hansard import status
hansard doctor
hansard status
hansard watcher login status
```
Initial imports run in the background. A completed setup journal does not mean those imports finished; use hansard import follow to watch them. Confirm that selected recall integrations and watcher startup are enabled. Restart or reload an already-open agent to load recall.
Open the viewer.
Terminal window
```
hansard app
```
On macOS, this opens the separately installed native app when available. If the native app is unavailable, run hansard web for the local browser viewer.
Search the archive in the app.

Open Conversations, select the search icon beside the conversation count, and enter a phrase such as authentication migration. Select a result to open the complete archived transcript.

The terminal equivalent is:
Terminal window
```
hansard history "authentication migration" --since 90d
```

Explore in the app

The left sidebar is the main map of an archive. Conversations groups sessions by project and source folder, Projects opens project-level activity, and Memories shows backed-up instruction and knowledge records. Open Stats for aggregate activity, Usage for locally captured plan limits, Behavior for period-over-period comparison, and Deep Recall for a cited answer assembled from several archived conversations.

Use Filter & sort in Conversations to narrow the list by Source, Model, Time, conversation kind, or Folder. Open Settings → Indexing & Imports to review the local sources Hansard follows and the watcher rolling window. A complete historical backfill remains an explicit terminal operation because it can reread a large provider store.

Import all configured local sources

For a complete backfill beyond the initial time window, review the configured sources and disk-space estimate first:

hansard import --source all --since all --dry-run

When the source list and storage plan are acceptable, run:

hansard import --source all --since all

Use hansard help import to see the current source IDs and provider-specific import paths.