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Saving Copilot chat session history (audit trail)

chat-session-history.Rmd

This vignette demonstrates a reproducible workflow for capturing GitHub Copilot Chat session history into a project directory to support a transparent audit trail of AI usage.

Functions covered:

Overview of the workflow

A typical workflow looks like:

  1. Export your Copilot Chat session as a .zip file.
  2. Run extract_copilot_chat() to write (or update) a dev/sessions/YYYY-MM-DD[_topic].md file.
  3. Re-run the export + extract_copilot_chat() throughout the day; the function will create timestamped backups.
  4. Periodically run cleanup_session_backups() to delete old backups.

Setup 

library(reproducibleai)

A runnable example (using a synthetic export zip)

To make this vignette runnable without requiring an actual Copilot export, we generate a tiny zip that mimics the expected structure:

tmp <- tempdir()

# Create a minimal Copilot-like export zip in a temp folder
export_dir <- file.path(tmp, "copilot_export_example")
dir.create(export_dir, showWarnings = FALSE, recursive = TRUE)

md_path <- file.path(export_dir, "copilot-chat.md")
writeLines(c(
  "# Example Copilot Chat Export",
  "",
  "This is a synthetic chat export used for the vignette.",
  "",
  "- Question: How do I do X?",
  "- Answer: Here's how..."
), md_path)

zip_path <- file.path(tmp, "copilot_export_example.zip")

# zip() works most reliably with relative paths, so temporarily setwd()
old_wd <- getwd()
setwd(export_dir)
utils::zip(zipfile = zip_path, files = basename(md_path))
setwd(old_wd)

file.exists(zip_path)
#> [1] TRUE

Extract a session transcript

In a real project, you’ll typically use sessions_dir = "dev/sessions" (the default). For this vignette, we write into a temp directory so we don’t modify your project.

sessions_dir <- file.path(tmp, "dev", "sessions")

session_path <- extract_copilot_chat(
  zip_path = zip_path,
  session_date = "2026-04-14",
  topic = "documentation",
  sessions_dir = sessions_dir,
  backup = TRUE,
  quiet = TRUE
)

session_path
#> [1] "C:\\Users\\B5PMMMPD\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\1\\RtmpasObLh/dev/sessions/2026-04-14_documentation.md"
readLines(session_path, warn = FALSE)[1:6]
#> [1] "# Example Copilot Chat Export"                         
#> [2] ""                                                      
#> [3] "This is a synthetic chat export used for the vignette."
#> [4] ""                                                      
#> [5] "- Question: How do I do X?"                            
#> [6] "- Answer: Here's how..."

Updating the same session (and creating backups)

If you export again later and re-run extract_copilot_chat() for the same session_date + topic, the existing file will be overwritten and a backup will be created in dev/sessions/.backups/.

To demonstrate that, we update the synthetic markdown inside the zip and extract again.

# Update the synthetic markdown and re-zip
writeLines(c(
  "# Example Copilot Chat Export (updated)",
  "",
  "This simulates a later export from the same day.",
  "",
  "- New item added later in the session."
), md_path)

old_wd <- getwd()
setwd(export_dir)
utils::zip(zipfile = zip_path, files = basename(md_path))
setwd(old_wd)

# Extract again -> should create a backup of the previous session file
session_path2 <- extract_copilot_chat(
  zip_path = zip_path,
  session_date = "2026-04-14",
  topic = "documentation",
  sessions_dir = sessions_dir,
  backup = TRUE,
  quiet = TRUE
)

identical(session_path, session_path2)
#> [1] TRUE

List session files and backups:

list.files(sessions_dir, full.names = FALSE)
#> [1] "2026-04-14_documentation.md"

backup_dir <- file.path(sessions_dir, ".backups")
list.files(backup_dir, full.names = FALSE)
#> [1] "2026-04-14_documentation_backup_20260428_174445.md"

Cleaning up old backups

Over time, repeated exports can create many backups. Use cleanup_session_backups() to delete backups older than days_to_keep.

First, a dry run (no deletion):

cleanup_session_backups(
  sessions_dir = sessions_dir,
  days_to_keep = 7,
  dry_run = TRUE
)

To actually delete eligible backups in a real project:

cleanup_session_backups(
  sessions_dir = "dev/sessions",
  days_to_keep = 7,
  dry_run = FALSE
)

For a consistent audit trail across projects:

  • Store session transcripts in dev/sessions/
  • Use YYYY-MM-DD[_topic].md naming (what extract_copilot_chat() produces)
  • Commit dev/sessions/*.md to version control when appropriate for your org
  • Decide on a backup retention policy (e.g., keep 7 or 30 days)
  • Periodically run cleanup_session_backups() (or schedule it)

Troubleshooting

Common issues:

  • “Zip file not found”: confirm the path is correct and accessible.
  • “No .md file found in zip archive root”: extract_copilot_chat() expects a markdown file at the root of the zip.
  • Multiple root .md files: the function will use the first one (and warn).