Copilot CLI

  • ID: copilot
  • Store: ~/.copilot/session-state/<sessionId>/events.jsonl
  • Read override: DEJA_COPILOT_ROOT (points at the session-state directory)
  • Format: append-only JSONL, one event per line, each {type, data, timestamp}

session.start carries sessionId and context.cwd, which is where the

project name comes from; the directory the file sits in is not the id and can

differ from it. Conversation turns are user.message and assistant.message,

both with data.content as a plain string.

The work is filed outside the message stream. tool.execution_start carries

toolName and arguments — path for the file tools, command for bash,

and old_str/new_str for an edit, which is the one place the replaced text

survives. tool.execution_complete carries data.result.content and a

success flag; failed results are indexed on purpose, because the error a

command hit is what a later search reaches for. session.shutdown also lists

codeChanges.filesModified, the only harness that hands over a modified-file

list the parser does not have to infer.

  • MCP: deja install copilot writes mcpServers.deja into

~/.copilot/mcp-config.json.

  • Guidance: a skill Copilot loads on demand.
  • Auto-recall: none. Copilot CLI exposes no hook that can inject context,

so MCP plus guidance is the whole install.

  • Resume: copilot --resume <sessionId>.
  • Handoff: exec.

Known quirks and drift

  • assistant.message records whose content is empty and whose work is entirely

in tool calls used to be dropped; the tool events now carry them.

  • Tool names are lowercase (edit, read, write, bash) where Claude Code

capitalises, and the edit argument is old_str rather than old_string.

  • A session directory can outlive its events.jsonl; the discovery walk only

picks up files that exist.

Specified in #655, work

records added in #1231.

Last verified: 2026-08-14

deja reads this format and nineteen others, and turns what it finds into memory your agents can search. See the harness matrix for what is wired where, or install it and search your own history.