Skip to content
threadle threadle

Lineage

Lineage answers one question: where did this context come from, and where did it go? The view at /lineage draws a layered graph of sessions and payloads, wired by extract and inject edges — across providers.

❯ claude session ──extract──▸ ❝ distilled ──inject──▸ ❯ opencode session

How edges are recorded

Section titled “How edges are recorded”
EdgeSource of truth
session → payload (extract)The payload’s own source field — always known, for every payload ever stored
payload → session (inject)~/.config/threadle/runs/injects.jsonl, one JSON object per line

An inject record holds the timestamp, payload hash, mode, target, and the resulting session. It is appended by:

  • POST /api/inject — every injection through the inject modal or a canvas node
  • POST /api/lineage/record — handoffs that bypass the inject route, notably the one-step ⇄ hand off modal (mode: handoff) and the workflow runner feeding a payload into an agent as a prompt (mode: workflow)

Recording is best-effort and append-only: a failed write never fails the injection, and a corrupt line is skipped on read. Injections made before this file existed simply have no inject edge.

GET /api/lineage returns { payloads, injects, runSessions } — the last being sessions a threadle job produced, used to badge nodes as workflow.

Reading the canvas

Section titled “Reading the canvas”

The Lineage view showing session and payload nodes wired together

Sessions (❯) and payloads (❝) alternating left to right — one chain per thread of context.

Nodes are laid out by depth (x) with barycentre ordering inside each layer (y), so chains read left to right and crossings stay low.

NodeGlyphShows
session❯Title (live, from discovery) and provider, plus a workflow badge when a run touched it
payload❝Preview, kind, size, age, and short source

Selecting a node highlights its connected component and dims everything else; edge labels (extract · 12.4k, fork · 12.4k) appear only on the highlighted thread, keeping the default canvas quiet. Arriving with ?focus=<provider>:<sessionId> locks that thread so a pane click does not clear it — that is what ⇄ lineage buttons elsewhere in the app pass.

Filters

Section titled “Filters”
ControlValues
Kind chipsall · distilled · excerpts · files
Provider chipsall · claude · opencode · cursor — matches the source or any inject target
unusedPayloads that were never injected. Hidden by default
Search boxFull-text over payload contents

The header counts payloads in chains, total handoffs, and unused payloads. Clicking the unused count clears the kind and provider filters when nothing would otherwise appear — the promised count always becomes visible.

Search runs against the search index restricted to payloads (doctype=payload), debounced; matches are outlined and always shown, even if they are unused.

Click-through

Section titled “Click-through”

Selecting a payload gives hash, kind, size, created, source, and a never injected status when it is an orphan — plus ⌗ blueprint of the source, ⇓ raw JSON, ⇆ diff against the injected result, a list of every injected into target, and the full content.

Selecting a session gives provider and id, ⌗ blueprint, ⇆ diff with its lineage peer, any threadle runs that touched it (click to open the workflow), and the full session info panel.

Elsewhere in the app

Section titled “Elsewhere in the app”
  • Session blueprints draw ❝ context nodes for payloads extracted from (↑) and injected into (↓) that session; the info panel’s context handoffs chips jump to lineage focused on it.
  • The library’s ⋯ → Lineage focuses the source session.
  • The Timeline detail aside has a ⇄ lineage button.
Section titled “Related”