2.13.0-beta.20). Features may change before the next stable release.Switch to stable →ak sessions
ak sessions tail
Follow new displayable messages appended to one Claude Code session, with explicit streaming and loss limits.
Use ak sessions tail while Claude Code is actively appending to a known local
session file.
Usage
ak sessions tail <project> <session-id>The command requires a registered project and a safe session ID containing only
letters, digits, _, or -. It has no command-specific flags.
Stream behavior
ak sessions tail myapp session-abc
ak sessions tail myapp session-abc --jsonThe tail seeks to the current end before polling every 500 ms. It never emits
historical backfill; use sessions show first when you need the
existing transcript. Stop with Ctrl-C or process cancellation, which normally
exits 0.
Only complete, parseable, displayable lines are emitted. Malformed and non-displayable events are skipped without a counter. The internal stream buffer holds 32 events; a slow consumer can lose later events instead of blocking the writer. Tailing is therefore observational, not a lossless audit log.
This command follows Claude Code session files only. It does not tail Codex
sessions even though list and show can discover them. It reads locally,
never prompts, writes no state, and makes no network request.
Output and privacy
Human stdout prints timestamp, message type, and the first text or tool name.
With --json, stdout is NDJSON: each appended message is a separate
kind=sessions.event envelope. Do not parse it as one JSON document.
Events can contain private prompts, thinking, tool inputs, and tool output. Content blocks are subject to the session parser's 256 KiB truncation, but that is a size bound, not redaction. Keep the stream local unless reviewed.
Exit status
| Exit | Meaning |
|---|---|
0 | The stream ended through cancellation or source-channel closure. |
1 | Home, project, path, subscription setup, or stdout encoding failed. |
2 | Arguments or flags were invalid. |
A missing file can close the stream without an error after subscription setup;
verify the session with show before relying on a long-running tail.