Citeable fact
Claude SDK sessions persist as JSONL
Anthropic documents default Agent SDK transcript storage as JSONL files under ~/.claude/projects/.
Session evidence for AI-agent work
Claude session logs, made inspectable.
A source-grounded field guide to Claude Code transcripts, Agent SDK session storage, hook audit trails, OpenTelemetry events, privacy controls, and incident review.
Citeable fact
Telemetry exports metrics, logs, and traces
Claude Code telemetry flows through OpenTelemetry so teams can correlate agent sessions with operational systems.
Citeable fact
Hooks expose session, turn, and tool boundaries
Hook lifecycle events are the natural capture points for audit trails and policy decisions.
Free local tools
Inspect transcripts without uploading them.
Drop a JSONL transcript into the browser, turn it into a timeline, estimate token cost, or export an audit note. No backend, signup, or transcript upload.
View all toolsclaude code session logs, jsonl transcript viewer
Log Viewer
Drop a Claude Code JSONL transcript and turn it into a readable local timeline of messages, tool calls, tool results, and token fields.
claude code token usage
Token Analyzer
Estimate Claude Code transcript token usage and cost by turn with a dated model pricing table and CSV export.
agent observability checklist
Audit Checklist
Run an interactive agent-session audit checklist and export a concise Markdown note for PRs, incidents, and handoffs.
Guide map
The operational questions in one place.
This site does not try to be a general Claude Code tutorial. It answers one lane: what evidence exists after an agent run, how to preserve it, how to observe it, and how to review it.
Foundation
What Claude Session Logs Are
A source-grounded explanation of Claude Code and Agent SDK session logs, what they contain, and what they do not prove.
Field guide
Claude Transcript Anatomy
How to read Claude JSONL transcript artifacts, hook transcript paths, subagent transcript paths, and stream-json output without mixing them up.
Telemetry
Claude Code Observability With OpenTelemetry
A practical map of Claude Code and Agent SDK telemetry: traces, metrics, logs, identity attributes, and event analysis.
Controls
Hook Audit Trails For Claude Code
How Claude Code hooks create reliable capture points for prompts, tool calls, stop events, subagents, and policy decisions.
Governance
Session Storage And Retention
How to design Claude transcript storage, SessionStore mirroring, retention windows, and deletion workflows without losing useful evidence.
Risk
Privacy And Redaction For Claude Logs
What to redact before sharing Claude transcripts, OpenTelemetry events, hook logs, screenshots, or derived summaries.
Primary-source rule
Product behavior claims cite product docs.
"traces, metrics, and log events"
That short phrase from Anthropic's Agent SDK observability docs is the core of this site's telemetry model. The rest of the source list ties session, hook, CLI, storage, cost, and log-management claims back to primary references.
View source indexPlaybook
Incident Review
A step-by-step review path for failed, stalled, expensive, surprising, or security-sensitive Claude agent runs.
Operations
Dashboards
Metrics, event groupings, and alert ideas for Claude Code and Agent SDK observability dashboards.
Freshness
Updates
A freshness surface tracking Claude Code changes that affect session logs, transcript handling, hooks, telemetry, and audit review.
Cost evidence
Token Usage
How to read Claude Code token fields in transcripts and telemetry, estimate cost, and avoid treating local estimates as invoices.
Bibliography
Sources
Annotated source list for Claude Code session logs, Agent SDK session storage, hooks, telemetry, and general log-management guidance.
Source count
17 primary references currently power Claude Logs.
The update register is the freshness surface. Future updates should track official Claude Code changes that affect transcripts, hooks, telemetry, stream output, cost fields, and retention behavior.