Overview

When running hermes --continue, the CLI currently blindly grabs the most recent CLI session and resumes it. There is no way to browse, search, or select from past sessions interactively. Similarly, hermes sessions list outputs a flat table but provides no way to select a session to resume from it.

A user specifically requested "a navigable list when running the hermes continue command."

Current Behavior

• hermes --continue / hermes -c → resumes the single most recent CLI session (no choice)
• hermes --resume <id> → requires knowing the exact session ID
• hermes sessions list → prints a table, user must copy-paste ID manually
• No interactive picker, no search, no preview

Proposed Solution

Interactive Session Picker

When hermes --continue is run without a session ID, present an interactive curses-based picker showing recent sessions:

┌─ Select a session to resume ─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Search: _                                                             │
│                                                                       │
│ > 2026-03-08 14:30  "Debugging the auth middleware"     12 msgs  cli │
│   2026-03-08 11:15  "Setting up MC server"              45 msgs  cli │
│   2026-03-07 22:00  "PR review #438"                     8 msgs  cli │
│   2026-03-07 16:45  "Writing pytest fixtures"           23 msgs  cli │
│   2026-03-07 09:30  20260307_093012_a1b2                 3 msgs  cli │
│                                                                       │
│ ↑↓ navigate  /search  Enter select  Esc cancel                       │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Features:

• Arrow key navigation — browse through recent sessions
• Search/filter — type to filter by title, date, or content keywords
• Preview line — show first user message or session title (requires Feature: Automatic Session Title Generation — Lightweight LLM-Based Title After First Exchange (inspired by DeerFlow) #624)
• Source filter — option to show sessions from all sources, not just CLI
• Enter to select — launches resume with the selected session ID
• Fallback — if curses is unavailable (Windows), fall back to numbered list with input prompt

Implementation Notes

• Must use curses (not simple_term_menu — see Known Pitfalls in AGENTS.md)
• Pattern already exists in hermes_cli/tools_config.py for curses-based interactive selection
• Should pull from SessionDB.search_sessions() which already supports source filtering
• Session titles from Feature: Automatic Session Title Generation — Lightweight LLM-Based Title After First Exchange (inspired by DeerFlow) #624 would make this much more useful, but it works without them (show timestamp + first user message preview)
• The --limit flag on hermes sessions list could also apply here

CLI Interface

hermes --continue              # Opens interactive picker (new behavior)
hermes --continue --latest     # Skip picker, grab most recent (old behavior preserved)
hermes --resume <id>           # Direct resume by ID (unchanged)
hermes sessions list           # Could also gain an --interactive / -i flag

Relevant Files

• hermes_cli/main.py — cmd_chat(), _resolve_last_cli_session(), sessions subcommand
• hermes_state.py — SessionDB.search_sessions()
• hermes_cli/tools_config.py — existing curses picker patterns (_prompt_choice())
• cli.py — HermesCLI.__init__() resume parameter handling

Related Issues

• Feature: Automatic Session Title Generation — Lightweight LLM-Based Title After First Exchange (inspired by DeerFlow) #624 — Session title generation (titles make the picker much more useful)
• Feature: Tree-Structured Sessions with Branching & Navigation (inspired by Pi) #357 — Tree-structured sessions (future: picker could show branch points)
• Feature: Web UI Gateway — Local Browser-Based Interface with Streaming, Artifacts & Rich Rendering #501 — Web UI (web UI would have its own session sidebar)