Working with sessions

Save, resume, and manage debugging sessions to preserve state across CLI invocations

Sessions allow you to save complete debugging contexts and resume your work later. This is essential for complex investigations, team collaboration, and building a history of analyzed transactions.

Overview

A debugging session stores:

• Complete transaction data (envelope, metadata)
• Simulation results (events, logs, traces)
• Analysis context (network, timestamps)
• Session metadata (creation time, access history)

Sessions enable you to:

• Resume debugging work after interruption
• Share debugging context with team members
• Build a searchable history of investigated transactions
• Analyze patterns across multiple debugging sessions

Quick start

1. Debug a transaction
2. erst debug abc123...def --network testnet
   

3. Save the session
4. erst session save
   

5. List saved sessions
6. erst session list
   

7. Resume later
8. erst session resume <session-id>
   

Session commands

Save current session

Save the active debugging session to disk:

erst session save

You must run erst debug <tx-hash> first to create an active session.

Custom session ID

Specify a memorable ID instead of auto-generated:

erst session save --id my-debug-session

Auto-generated IDs use the format:

<tx-hash-prefix>-<timestamp>

Example: abc123-20260301143022

List all sessions

View all saved sessions, ordered by most recently accessed:

erst session list

Example output:

Saved sessions (3):

ID                   Network      Last Accessed        Transaction Hash
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
abc123-20260301      testnet      2026-03-01 14:30    abc123def456789...
my-debug-session     mainnet      2026-02-28 09:15    789def123abc456...
token-transfer-001   mainnet      2026-02-25 16:45    456abc789def123...

Resume a session

Restore a previously saved session:

erst session resume <session-id>

Flexible ID resolution:

You can provide:

• Full session ID: abc123-20260301143022
• Partial ID prefix: abc123
• Transaction hash: abc123def456...
• Fuzzy match: Closest matching ID

Example output:

Session resumed: abc123-20260301143022
  Transaction: abc123def456789abcdef123456789abcdef123456789abcdef123456789abc
  Network: testnet
  Created: 2026-03-01T14:30:22Z
  Last accessed: 2026-03-03T10:15:33Z

Transaction Envelope:
  Size: 2,048 bytes

Simulation Results:
  Status: failed
  Error: InsufficientBalance
  Events: 12
  Logs: 45

Resuming a session loads all transaction data and simulation results, allowing you to continue analysis without re-fetching from the network.

Delete a session

Remove a saved session permanently:

erst session delete <session-id>

This action cannot be undone. The session data will be permanently deleted.

Session storage

Location

Sessions are stored in a local SQLite database:

~/.erst/sessions.db

Schema

Each session record contains:

Field	Type	Description
id	string	Unique session identifier
tx_hash	string	Transaction hash
network	string	Network name (mainnet, testnet)
envelope_xdr	string	Base64-encoded transaction envelope
sim_response_json	string	JSON-encoded simulation response
created_at	timestamp	Session creation time
last_access_at	timestamp	Last access/modification time
status	string	Session status (saved, resumed)
schema_version	int	Session data schema version

Automatic cleanup

Sessions are automatically cleaned up based on:

Time-to-live (TTL):

• Default: 30 days
• Sessions older than TTL are deleted
• Configurable via environment variable

Maximum sessions:

• Default: 100 sessions
• Oldest sessions deleted when limit exceeded
• Cleanup uses LRU (Least Recently Used) strategy

# Configure TTL (days)
export ERST_SESSION_TTL=60

# Configure max sessions
export ERST_SESSION_MAX=200

Common workflows

Save and share with team

1. Debug transaction
2. erst debug abc123...def --network mainnet
   

3. Save with descriptive ID
4. erst session save --id token-exploit-2026-03-01
   

5. Export session data
6. # SQLite query to export session
   sqlite3 ~/.erst/sessions.db "SELECT * FROM sessions WHERE id='token-exploit-2026-03-01'" > session.json
   

7. Share with team
8. Share the session ID or exported JSON with colleagues. They can import or reference the same transaction.

Resume interrupted work

1. Start debugging
2. erst debug abc123...def --interactive
   # Start exploring trace...
   # [Ctrl+C to interrupt]
   

3. Save session on exit
4. erst session save
   

5. Continue later
6. # List to find session
   erst session list
   
   # Resume by ID prefix
   erst session resume abc123
   
   # Launch interactive viewer again
   erst debug abc123...def --interactive
   

When you resume a session, Erst uses cached data instead of fetching from the network, making analysis instant.

Build investigation history

1. Save each investigation
2. As you debug different transactions, save sessions with descriptive names:
3. erst debug tx1... && erst session save --id exploit-attempt-1
   erst debug tx2... && erst session save --id exploit-attempt-2
   erst debug tx3... && erst session save --id exploit-attempt-3
   

4. Review patterns
5. List sessions to see your investigation history:
6. erst session list
   

7. Compare results
8. Resume different sessions to compare:
9. erst session resume exploit-attempt-1
   # Review results...
   
   erst session resume exploit-attempt-2
   # Compare with attempt 1...
   

Clean up old sessions

Manually trigger cleanup:

# View current sessions
erst session list

# Delete specific old sessions
erst session delete old-session-id

# Automatic cleanup happens on save/resume
erst session save  # Triggers cleanup internally

Session compatibility

Schema versioning

Sessions include a schema version number. When you update Erst:

• Compatible versions: Sessions load normally
• Incompatible versions: You’ll see a warning and may need to re-debug the transaction

Warning: Session schema version 2 is not compatible with current version 3.
Please re-debug this transaction with: erst debug <tx-hash>

Forward compatibility

Newer Erst versions can read older sessions when possible. Breaking changes are documented in release notes.

Migration

If schema migration is needed, Erst provides migration commands:

# Check if migration is needed
erst session list

# Migrate old sessions (if migration available)
erst session migrate

Advanced usage

Query sessions directly

Access the SQLite database for custom queries:

# Find sessions by network
sqlite3 ~/.erst/sessions.db "SELECT id, tx_hash FROM sessions WHERE network='testnet'"

# Count sessions by status
sqlite3 ~/.erst/sessions.db "SELECT status, COUNT(*) FROM sessions GROUP BY status"

# Find oldest sessions
sqlite3 ~/.erst/sessions.db "SELECT id, created_at FROM sessions ORDER BY created_at LIMIT 5"

Backup sessions

Back up your session database:

# Create backup
cp ~/.erst/sessions.db ~/.erst/sessions.db.backup

# Restore backup
cp ~/.erst/sessions.db.backup ~/.erst/sessions.db

Export session for reporting

Extract session data for external analysis:

# Export as JSON
sqlite3 ~/.erst/sessions.db "SELECT json_object(
  'id', id,
  'tx_hash', tx_hash,
  'network', network,
  'created_at', created_at
) FROM sessions WHERE id='<session-id>'"

Troubleshooting

No active session

Error: no active session to save

Solution: Run erst debug <tx-hash> first to create a session before saving.

Session not found

Error: session not found: abc123

Solutions:

• Check session ID with erst session list
• Verify spelling of session ID
• Session may have been cleaned up (check TTL)
• Try providing full session ID instead of prefix

Database locked

Error: database is locked

Solutions:

• Close other Erst processes accessing sessions
• Wait a moment and try again
• Check file permissions on ~/.erst/sessions.db

Schema version mismatch

Error: session schema version 3 is not compatible with current version 2

Solutions:

• Update Erst to the latest version
• Re-debug the transaction with current Erst version
• Check migration documentation in release notes

Implementation details

Source files

Session management is implemented in:

• internal/cmd/session.go - CLI commands
• internal/session/store.go - Database operations
• internal/session/schema.go - Data structures

Functions

Key functions:

• SetCurrentSession() - Stores active session from debug command
• GetCurrentSession() - Retrieves current session if any
• Store.Save() - Persists session to database
• Store.Load() - Retrieves session by ID
• Store.List() - Lists all sessions
• Store.Delete() - Removes session
• Store.Cleanup() - Runs LRU cleanup

Location: internal/cmd/session.go:24, internal/cmd/session.go:29

Best practices

Use descriptive IDs

Custom IDs make sessions easier to find:

erst session save --id contract-upgrade-bug-2026-03

Better than auto-generated: abc123-20260301143022

Save after important findings

Save sessions when you discover something important:

# Found the root cause
erst session save --id rootcause-insufficient-allowance

This creates a reference point you can return to.

Clean up regularly

Delete sessions you no longer need:

erst session list
erst session delete old-test-session

Keeps the session list manageable.

Back up before major updates

Before updating Erst to a new major version:

cp ~/.erst/sessions.db ~/.erst/sessions.db.backup

Protects against schema compatibility issues.

Next steps

Debugging failed transactions

Learn how to create sessions during debugging

Cache management

Understand how caching complements sessions

Using flamegraphs

Save profiling data in sessions