lore summarize

Add, view, or auto-generate summaries for sessions. Summaries provide a concise description of what happened in a session, useful for quickly scanning history and continuing previous work.

Usage

lore summarize <SESSION> [SUMMARY]
lore summarize <SESSION> --show
lore summarize <SESSION> --generate

Examples

Add a Manual Summary

# Add a summary by hand
lore summarize abc123 "Implemented OAuth2 login flow with Google and GitHub providers"

# Update an existing summary (overwrites)
lore summarize abc123 "Implemented OAuth2 login with Google, GitHub, and Apple providers"

View a Summary

lore summarize abc123 --show

Session abc12345

Summary:
Implemented OAuth2 login flow with Google and GitHub providers

Last updated: 2026-02-27 10:30:00

Generate a Summary via LLM

lore summarize abc123 --generate

Generated summary for session abc12345
Implemented a background daemon auto-summarization feature that generates
LLM-powered session summaries when sessions end.

- Added auto_summarize_session method to the daemon watcher
- Configured summary_auto and summary_auto_threshold settings
- Hooked into session end detection in both update and import paths
- Added [S] indicator to lore sessions list for sessions with summaries

This requires a summary provider to be configured. See Configuration below.

Options

Option	Description
`SUMMARY`	Manual summary text (positional argument)
`--show`	Display the existing summary
`--generate`	Generate summary using the configured LLM provider

--show and --generate cannot be used together. --generate cannot be used with manual summary text.

Configuration

Summary generation requires a configured LLM provider. The easiest way to set this up is via the init wizard:

lore init --force

The wizard prompts for provider selection and API key with hidden input (keys are not exposed in shell history).

Manual Configuration

# Set the provider
lore config set summary_provider anthropic

# Set the API key (note: key will appear in shell history)
lore config set summary_api_key_anthropic sk-ant-...

Supported Providers

Provider	Default Model
`anthropic`	`claude-haiku-4-5-20241022`
`openai`	`gpt-4o-mini`
`openrouter`	`anthropic/claude-haiku-4-5-20241022`

Model Override

To use a different model than the default:

lore config set summary_model_anthropic claude-sonnet-4-20250514

Environment Variables

Environment variables override config file values:

Variable	Overrides
`LORE_SUMMARY_PROVIDER`	`summary_provider`
`LORE_SUMMARY_API_KEY`	Provider-specific API key
`LORE_SUMMARY_MODEL`	Provider-specific model

Auto-Summarization

When the daemon is running, sessions can be automatically summarized when they end. See the Background Daemon guide for details.

Enable auto-summarization:

lore config set summary_auto true

Sessions with summaries show a [S] indicator in lore sessions output:

ID            STARTED           MESSAGES  BRANCH   DIRECTORY
abc12345 [S]  2026-02-27 10:30       234  main     myapp
def67890      2026-02-26 14:15        45  feat/x   backend