How things are organized
Seven concepts underpin every view in Claude Recall. Knowing which to reach for is the difference between a tidy library and a pile.
The map
See the diagram above. Session is the atom — one Claude Code conversation, identified by an immutable UUID. Every other concept attaches to it.
One-liners
- Session - one conversation with Claude Code. Identified by an immutable UUID.
- Project - auto-derived from the session's
cwd(working directory). Coarse; one per session. - Alias - the human-readable nickname you give a session (e.g.
auth-middleware-refactor). Replaces the UUID in the UI. - Tag - a flat
#keywordlabel. Many per session. Cross-project. - Collection - a hand-picked, hierarchical bundle of sessions (tree, up to 8 levels deep). Many per session. Cross-project.
- Thread - a DAG of sessions connected by intent (a planning session plus the execution sessions it spawned). Many per session. Cross-project. Navigable as a node graph. See the Threads section for the full story.
- Pin - a local ★ that floats a session to the top of the list. Per-browser.
- Note - markdown you write about a session. One per session, with full edit history.
Comparison matrix
| Concept | Auto or manual? | One or many per session? | Cross-project? | Hierarchical? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Project | auto (from cwd) | one | - | no |
| Alias | manual | one (prior values archived) | n/a | no |
| Tag | manual (or auto-scan) | many | yes | no (flat) |
| Collection | manual | many | yes | yes (tree, max 8 deep) |
| Thread | manual now; auto in v0.15b Pro | many | yes | yes (DAG, multiple origins allowed) |
| Pin | manual | one (boolean) | n/a | no |
| Note | manual | one (with history) | n/a | no |
Which one when?
- Tag keywords that might repeat across sessions —
#auth,#migration,#bug-fix. - Collection the handful of sessions that mattered for a milestone — "v1.0 launch decisions", "Scraping — current state".
- Alias the one session you'll look for by memory —
auth-middleware-refactor. - Pin your canonical sessions so they sit at the top of their project.
- Note the 3-bullet takeaway you'll re-read in 3 months.
Rules of thumb
- If two sessions share a concept and might show up in unrelated projects: tag.
- If you want a named, curated, nestable bundle you'll open directly: collection.
- If the answer is "this one particular session", name it with an alias and pin it.
- If the sessions are a connected unit of work (a planning session plus the execution sessions it spawned), use a thread (see the Threads section below).