JetBrains AI Assistant

  • ID: jetbrains
  • Store: <config>/<Product><version>/workspace/<projectWorkspaceId>.xml, the chats inside it, and <config>/<Product><version>/aia-task-history/<chat uid>.events for agent chats
  • Config root: ~/Library/Application Support/JetBrains on macOS, %APPDATA%\JetBrains on Windows, ${XDG_CONFIG_HOME:-~/.config}/JetBrains elsewhere
  • Read overrides: DEJA_JETBRAINS_ROOT replaces the config root
  • Format: XML for chats; agent task logs are an AUI_EVENTS_V1 line, then one base64 JSON record per line
  • Needs: nothing
  • Resume: none — a chat reopens from the IDE's own history

AI Assistant is the chat inside IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, GoLand and the other

JetBrains IDEs. Each product and version has its own config directory

(IntelliJIdea2026.2, PyCharm2026.1, …), and deja reads all of them.

A project's chats are the ChatSessionStateTemp component of its workspace

file. The file is named after the project's workspace id, not its path

(ProjectStoreImpl in intellij-community), and options/recentProjects.xml

maps it back: <entry key="$USER_HOME$/src/app"> holds a

RecentProjectMetaInfo with that projectWorkspaceId. Most workspace files

have no chat; the reader skips those on a byte search.

A chat is a SerializedChat: uid, chatModelId, the title, a start time

under statisticInformation, modifiedAt, and messages — each with

author (Assistant, or absent for the person), displayContent and

internalContent.

An agent chat (chatModelId starting agent_) keeps only the prompts in the

XML. Its work is in aia-task-history/<uid>.events: a

ChatSessionUserPromptEvent per prompt and a ChatSessionMessageBlockEvent

per block, the same blocks Junie's own log has (terminal, file views, file

changes, markdown in textChunk pieces, result). They are read as commands,

files, edits and text.

When <uid>.agentsession names an agent whose own store deja reads —

acp.registry.junie, claude-acp, codex-acp, github-copilot, cline,

kilo, opencode — that store has the whole conversation, and the chat is

left to it rather than read twice.

Last verified: 2026-10-08

Known quirks and drift

  • No per-message time. The XML stores the chat's start and last change,

nothing per message, and the task log nothing per record. Messages take the

start a millisecond apart, so two identical turns stay two.

  • Checked against chats and task logs from AI Assistant 2025.1 to 2026.2

in public dotfiles, and the 262.10968.170 plugin's classes. No signed-in IDE

ran on a stand.

  • Wiring. deja install jetbrains writes the server into

~/.ai/mcp/mcp.json under mcpServers, the global MCP file every JetBrains

IDE's AI Assistant reads (McpApplicationServerConfigurationService).

  • No hooks. Nothing in the 262.10968.170 plugin runs a user hook, so

recall reaches the chat as the MCP tool only: no digest, per-prompt, tool,

failure, compaction or session-end surface.

  • No skill. The plugin manages skill folders for the agents it hosts

(Junie, Claude, Codex), and its skill picker opens only for those. AI

Assistant's own chat reads none (AgentSkillsAdditionalRootsProvider,

AgentSkillsContextPopupContributor).

  • Rules are per project. AI Assistant reads rules from a project's

.aiassistant/rules/*.md and custom instructions from a project setting;

there is no user-level file for deja rules to write.

  • Junie in the IDE. The Junie agent AI Assistant runs keeps its sessions

in Junie's own store, read as junie.

deja reads this format and forty 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.

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