Session Tools Overview

IST consists of several CLI tools that work together to manage AI coding sessions.

Tool Overview

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                   IST Ecosystem                      │
├─────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────┬───────────┤
│ ilogsession │  imessenger │    isesh    │   skit    │
│    Logs     │  Messaging  │  Sessions   │   Kits    │
└─────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────┴───────────┘

ilogsession

Session log viewing

# View a session's full logs
ilogsession show my-session

# Follow a running session's output in real-time
ilogsession tail my-session

# Show the last few conversation turns
ilogsession turns my-session

Sessions are created and controlled with isesh (isesh start, isesh list, isesh stop, …); ilogsession records each session's output and lets you read it.

Key features:

• Persistent logging across session restarts
• Live and historical log viewing
• Works with the profile-based sessions created by isesh

imessenger

Inter-session messaging

# Send a message
imessenger send session-name "Your message"

# List sessions
imessenger list

# See open permission dialogs, then answer one
imessenger pending session-name
imessenger key session-name 1 --expect "Yes"

# Discover available sessions
imessenger discover

Key features:

• Async communication between AI sessions
• Permission approval workflow
• Message queuing

isesh

Session lifecycle and configuration

# Start, list, attach to and stop sessions
isesh start my-session -p tda-worker -w .
isesh list
isesh attach my-session
isesh stop my-session

# List available profiles
isesh profile list

# Show profile details
isesh profile show mwd

# List prompts
isesh prompt list

# Show a prompt
isesh prompt show worker-management

Key features:

• Session lifecycle (start, attach, stop, kill, delete, rename, archive)
• Profile management
• Prompt templates
• Session state persistence

skit

skit — the standard format for packaging AI-agent instructions and tools as kits, usable by any agent through an adapter.

A kit bundles system prompts (profiles), prompts, and the CLI tools they use into one installable package.

# Install a kit
skit install @ist/tda-kit

# List installed kits
skit list

# List and read prompts installed by kits
skit prompt list
skit prompt show worker-management

# Uninstall a kit
skit uninstall @ist/tda-kit

Key features:

• Installs profiles, prompts, CLI dependencies, hooks, states and permission packs in one step
• Global and profile-scoped prompts
• Clean uninstall of the profile, prompt and state files it installed

See the skit reference for all commands and the skit.json format.

How They Work Together

User Request
     │
     ▼
┌─────────────────┐
│     isesh       │──── Starts session with profile
│    start -p     │
└────────┬────────┘
         │
         ▼
┌─────────────────┐
│     isesh       │──── Loads profile configuration
│  profile show   │
└────────┬────────┘
         │
         ▼
┌─────────────────┐
│    Session      │
│   (AI Agent)    │
└────────┬────────┘
         │
         ▼
┌─────────────────┐
│   imessenger    │──── Communicates with other sessions
│      send       │
└─────────────────┘

Data Locations

Data	Location
Profiles	~/.ist/profiles/
Prompts	~/.ist/prompts/global/, ~/.ist/prompts/profiles/<profile>/, ~/.ist/prompts/sessions/<session>/
Session logs	~/.ist/logs/
Configuration	~/.ist/config.json

Common Workflows

Starting a Solo Session

isesh start my-task -p mwd -w .

Manager/Worker Setup

# Manager
isesh start mgr -p tda-manager -w .

# Workers
isesh start w1 -p tda-worker -w .
isesh start w2 -p tda-worker -w .

# Manager delegates
imessenger send w1 "Task description"

Checking System Status

# All sessions
isesh list

# TDA team tree
itda tree -a

# Installed profiles
skit list