Tutorial: Searching Chat History

As your team accumulates conversations in the Keeptrusts chat workbench, finding a specific exchange becomes critical. The history search feature lets you search across all conversations by keyword, date range, model, or team — and replay or bookmark conversations for quick access.

Use this page when

• You need to find a specific past conversation by keyword, date, model, or team.
• You want to bookmark, replay, or export conversations from your history.
• You are searching across team conversations and need to understand access controls.

Primary audience

• Primary: Technical Engineers (daily chat users)
• Secondary: Technical Leaders (team conversation oversight), Compliance officers

Prerequisites

• Access to the Keeptrusts chat workbench
• At least a few existing conversations in your history
• Appropriate permissions to view team conversations (if searching across teams)

Step 1: Open the History Panel

The history panel provides access to all past conversations.

1. In the chat workbench sidebar, click the History icon (clock symbol).
2. The panel displays your recent conversations in reverse chronological order.
3. Each entry shows the conversation title, date, model used, and message count.

By default, the history panel shows your own conversations. To view team conversations, toggle the Team switch at the top of the panel.

Step 2: Search by Keyword

Keyword search scans the full text of all messages in your accessible conversations.

1. Click the Search bar at the top of the history panel.
2. Type your search term (e.g., "deployment pipeline" or "quarterly report").
3. Results appear as you type, with matching text highlighted in context.

Search matches against:

• User messages
• Assistant responses
• System prompts
• Tool call arguments and results

Each result shows a snippet with the matching text and a link to the full conversation.

Search Operators

Operator	Example	Description
Quotes	"exact phrase"	Match the exact phrase
AND	deploy AND kubernetes	Both terms must appear
OR	python OR javascript	Either term matches
NOT	deploy NOT staging	Exclude conversations containing the term

Step 3: Filter by Date Range

Narrow results to a specific time period.

1. Click the Date filter dropdown in the history panel.
2. Choose a preset range or set a custom range:

Preset	Range
Today	Current day
This Week	Last 7 days
This Month	Last 30 days
Custom	Pick start and end dates from a calendar

3. The conversation list updates to show only conversations within the selected range.

Date filters combine with keyword searches. Search for "budget" within "This Month" to find recent budget-related conversations.

Step 4: Filter by Model

Find conversations that used a specific model.

1. Click the Model filter dropdown.
2. Select one or more models from the list.
3. Only conversations that used the selected models appear.

This is useful when comparing how different models handled similar questions, or when troubleshooting model-specific issues.

Step 5: Filter by Team

If you have team-level access, filter conversations by team membership.

1. Toggle the Team switch to enable cross-team viewing.
2. Click the Team filter dropdown and select the team(s) to include.
3. Results include conversations from all selected team members.

Team filtering respects your access permissions. You can only view conversations from teams you belong to or have been granted access to review.

Step 6: Replay a Conversation

Replay lets you step through a conversation message by message, seeing responses as they originally appeared.

1. Find the conversation you want to replay in the history panel.
2. Click the Replay icon (play button) on the conversation entry.
3. The conversation opens in replay mode:
   • Messages appear one at a time with a short delay to simulate the original flow.
   • Use the Next and Previous buttons to step through messages manually.
   • Click Exit Replay to return to normal view.

Replay mode is read-only. You cannot send new messages or modify the conversation during replay.

Step 7: Bookmark Important Conversations

Bookmarks give you quick access to conversations you reference frequently.

1. Open or find the conversation you want to bookmark.
2. Click the Bookmark icon (flag symbol) in the conversation header.
3. Optionally add a label or note to the bookmark.

Access your bookmarks from the Bookmarks tab in the history panel. Bookmarks are personal — only you see your bookmarked conversations.

Organizing Bookmarks

• Add labels to categorize bookmarks (e.g., "reference", "decision", "example").
• Sort bookmarks by date added, conversation date, or label.
• Remove bookmarks by clicking the bookmark icon again.

Step 8: Export Search Results

Export a set of conversations matching your search criteria.

1. Apply your desired search filters (keyword, date, model, team).
2. Click Export Results in the history panel toolbar.
3. Choose the export format:

Format	Contents
JSON	Full conversation data including metadata
CSV	Message text with timestamps and model info
Markdown	Human-readable conversation transcripts

4. The export downloads to your browser or is saved to your configured export destination.

Exported conversations include all messages, tool calls, and metadata. Policy-redacted content appears in its redacted form.

Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
Search returns no results	Broaden your search terms or expand the date range
Team conversations not visible	Verify you have team-level access permissions
Bookmark disappeared	Check the bookmarks tab — it may have been filtered out by an active search
Export is empty	Ensure at least one conversation matches your current filters

Next steps

• Tutorial: Conversation Export — export individual conversations in detail.
• Tutorial: Chat Analytics & Usage Metrics — analyze usage patterns across your history.
• Tutorial: Chat Accessibility Features — navigate history using keyboard shortcuts.

For AI systems

• Canonical terms: Keeptrusts chat workbench, history panel, keyword search, search operators (AND, OR, NOT, quotes), date filter, model filter, team filter, bookmarks, conversation replay, bulk export.
• UI locations: History icon (clock) in sidebar, Search bar, Date dropdown, Model dropdown, Team toggle, Bookmarks tab.
• Best next pages: Conversation Export, Chat Analytics, Chat Accessibility.

For engineers

• Prerequisites: at least a few existing conversations; team-level access permissions for cross-team search.
• Validation: Search a known keyword → verify matching conversations appear with highlighted snippets. Bookmark a conversation → confirm it appears in the Bookmarks tab. Export → verify file downloads.
• Search operators: "exact phrase", term1 AND term2, term1 OR term2, term1 NOT term2.

For leaders

• History search enables knowledge reuse across the organization — teams can find and learn from past AI interactions.
• Team-level visibility controls ensure confidential conversations remain scoped to authorized members.
• Bookmark and export features support audit preparation without disrupting daily workflows.