Spool is live · free · last verified 23 Oct 2026 · viability monitor
Spool
Spool turns your team's AI agent sessions into a shared, searchable library you can read, publish, and resume.
If your team runs Claude, Codex, and Gemini side by side and keeps relearning the same dead ends, Spool is the cheapest fix available — free, MIT-licensed, and it stays on your machine until you hit share. The route map plus `spool resume` is the feature nobody else ships in this shape. The catch is macOS-on-Apple-Silicon only, so mixed-OS shops should look at cloud tracing instead.
Verdict generatedVerified 6d ago · liveness 61/100 · cite: rightaichoice.com/tools/spool
- Teams running Claude, Codex, and Gemini who want one shared session history
- Developers on Apple Silicon Macs who need local, searchable agent archives
- Privacy-conscious teams that want on-device storage before any sharing
- CLI users who want to query or resume sessions straight from the terminal
- Teams not using agentic coding tools
- Windows or Linux users — there's no build for those platforms
- Teams expecting automatic cloud sync across machines
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Skip Spool if your team is on Windows or Linux, or if you need your session history to replicate automatically to every teammate's machine without anyone publishing a link.
Sharing a session creates a durable link and makes it Public in Explore by default, so anything you publish can be discovered and searched beyond your team.
Spool is free and MIT-licensed, which puts it at the bottom of the cost curve against cloud tracing stacks like Langfuse and Helicone, both of which charge by event or seat once you scale past their free allotments. That trade cuts the other way too: you are not paying because you are giving up hosted dashboards and automatic multi-device sync, and because the tool only runs on Apple Silicon Macs today.
In short
Spool — Spool turns your team's AI agent sessions into a shared, searchable library you can read, publish, and resume. Best for Teams running Claude, Codex, and Gemini who want one shared session history, Developers on Apple Silicon Macs who need local, searchable agent archives, Privacy-conscious teams that want on-device storage before any sharing. Free to use.
What is Spool?
Spool — Spool turns your team's AI agent sessions into a shared, searchable library you can read, publish, and resume. Best for Teams running Claude, Codex, and Gemini who want one shared session history, Developers on Apple Silicon Macs who need local, searchable agent archives, Privacy-conscious teams that want on-device storage before any sharing. Free to use.
Spool is a local-first app for teams running AI coding agents. It streams Claude, Codex, and Gemini sessions into one browsable space, so the reasoning behind a fix does not die in a terminal scrollback. Sessions are grouped by working directory, pinned for later, and searched through a global ⌘K bar that runs in Fast FTS5 or an AI synthesis mode. Each session is read as a route map: what the agent tried, where each attempt dead-ended, and the path that finally landed at the /goal. The share-and-resume loop is the core feature — `spool share` reviews the exact record range and flags sensitive-data findings before anything leaves your machine, then publishes the session as a public or team link; whoever opens it can pull the work into their own agent with `spool resume`. Under the hood it runs as a background daemon with a CLI (`spool search`) and a `/spool` skill for Claude Code, so agents themselves can query the library. The index and queries stay on-device until you publish. It is MIT-licensed, installs via `npx @spool-lab/cli`, and currently targets macOS on Apple Silicon. Compared with cloud-first tracing stacks like Langfuse or Helicone, Spool trades automatic multi-device sync for privacy and a publishable session format built around human reading rather than dashboards.
Key features
- Auto-indexes Claude, Codex, and Gemini agent sessions
- Route map showing dead ends and the final /goal path per session
- Global ⌘K search with Fast FTS5 and AI synthesis modes
- Groups sessions by working directory project
- Browsable Library Home with recent and pinned sessions
- Publish a session as a public or team link via spool share
- Reviews exact record range and sensitive-data findings before publishing
- Resume a shared session in your own agent with spool resume
- CLI (spool search) so agents can query the library
- /spool skill for Claude Code integration
- Background daemon for continuous session monitoring
- Local-first on-device index and queries
- MIT-licensed and installable via npx @spool-lab/cli
- Browser-approval login flow that works over SSH
- Publishable session format for readable, discoverable agent work
Behind the verdict
Spool's bet is that the reasoning inside an AI agent session is team knowledge, not a disposable log. Most tracing tools agree with half of that — they capture the session — but they store it in a dashboard built for aggregate metrics, not for a human trying to understand why the agent failed nine times before it worked. Spool's route map is the difference: open a session and you see turn 1's per-request debounce dead end, turn 3's localStorage lock dead end, and the single-flight pattern that finally passed at turn 14. That reads like a story because it is one. The share loop is genuinely thought through. `spool share` is not a fire-and-forget upload — it inspects the exact record range and surfaces sensitive-data findings before anything leaves your machine, and only then offers public or team links. Anyone with the link can read the session, then run `spool resume` to pull the work into their own agent, on their own machine, with their own model. That is a much better workflow than pasting a transcript into Slack and hoping someone forks it by hand. The privacy position is coherent rather than performative: the index and searches stay on-device, the daemon just watches session sources, and sharing is an explicit decision rather than a default. The CLI makes it scriptable — `spool search` lets agents query the library themselves, and the `/spool` skill gives Claude Code the same access during a session. The honest limits are the platform and the sync model. Spool currently targets macOS on Apple Silicon, and multi-device access happens through links you publish rather than continuous cloud replication. Teams expecting their session history to appear on every laptop automatically will need to change that expectation or pick a cloud-first tool. Teams on Windows or Linux cannot use it at all today. If those constraints do not bite you, the cost-to-value ratio here is hard to argue with — the tool is free and MIT-licensed, and it solves a problem that gets more expensive as your team adopts a second or third agent.
Models under the hood
as of 2026-10-24
Limitations
- Spool is a CLI tool, so sharing happens when you run `spool share` and create a public or team link.
- Supported sessions are Public in Explore and searchable by default; publishing reviews the exact record range and sensitive-data findings before anything leaves the machine, which is the safeguard rather than a private-by-default mode.
- The tool is macOS on Apple Silicon only today.
- Multi-device access happens through the links you publish, not through continuous cloud sync.
as of 2026-10-03
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Is Spool still active?
Spool is live · free · last verified 23 Oct 2026 · viability monitor.
Viability score
How well maintained and how widely used is Spool? Built from what the vendor actually publishes (docs, changelog, tutorials, integrations, pricing), whether the site is live, and how much real users discuss it. How we calculate this
Last calculated: October 2026
How we score →What do users say about Spool?
What people actually say about Spool — is it worth it?
We ran a structured research pass across product reviews, community discussions, and post-purchase forum threads to surface the patterns vendors won't publish themselves. Below: the recurring strengths, the hidden costs people mention most, and the cohort that consistently regrets adopting this tool.
Researched100 mentions across 7 sources (Hacker News, YouTube, Product Hunt, App Store, Stack Overflow, GitHub, Lemmy) · researched Aug 17, 2026.
Average across the 7 sources that answered — each source counts once, not each post.
- +Local-first privacy with all data on-device
- +Auto-indexes Claude, Codex, and Gemini sessions
- +Searchable library with fast FTS5 and AI modes
- +Share sessions as public or team links
- +Resume sessions in your own agent
- −Only works on macOS with Apple Silicon
- −No multi-device sync or cloud option
- −Setup requires installing daemon and CLI
- −Occasional indexing bugs or missed sessions
- −Niche tool: useless without AI coding agents
- • No hidden costs—totally free and open source
How we verified this
Every listed fact about Spool— pricing, features, links, status — is re-read from the vendor's own pages by our verification pipeline and each change is logged with a date; the last pass ran on 23 Oct 2026. Pages mix model-assisted synthesis with human review; see how we verify.
Verification history
We have re-verified Spool 12 times since . Each pass re-reads the vendor's own pages and re-checks every listed field against that evidence; passes where nothing had changed are marked as such.
- — changed SSL certificate
- — changed pricing fit, hidden costs, switching out, who should skip it, limitations, switching in, description, summary, setup time, features
- — changed summary, who should skip it, pricing tiers, our verdict, features, who it suits, description, integrations
- — changed domain expiry, link health
- — changed limitations, models, who should skip it, description, our verdict, hidden costs, switching in, switching out, pricing fit, setup time, pricing tiers, summary
- — changed SSL certificate, pricing tiers, features, our verdict, description, pricing page, limitations
Showing the 6 most recent of 12 verification passes.
Free to cite with attribution — this page re-verifies continuously.
How much does Spool cost in 2026?
Spool: Free to use. Pricing last verified 23 Oct 2026.
Plans compared
Every published Spool tier, its price as the vendor publishes it, who it fits, and what it adds over the tier below. The 12-month cost projection follows.
| Plan | Price | Billing | Who it's for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | — | Teams running Claude, Codex, and Gemini on Apple Silicon Macs who want one searchable session history without adding another SaaS line item.Adds: Starting tier: MIT-licensed and free, with local indexing, ⌘K search, route maps, and share/resume links. |
12-month cost
Project the real annual outlay, including the implied monthly cost when only an annual tier is published.
Vendor list price only. Add-on usage, seat overages, and contract minimums are surfaced under Hidden costs & gotchas.
Where the pricing makes sense
The company stage and team size where Spool's pricing actually pencils out — and where peers do it cheaper.
Spool is free and MIT-licensed, which puts it at the bottom of the cost curve against cloud tracing stacks like Langfuse and Helicone, both of which charge by event or seat once you scale past their free allotments. That trade cuts the other way too: you are not paying because you are giving up hosted dashboards and automatic multi-device sync, and because the tool only runs on Apple Silicon Macs today.
Has Spool's pricing changed?
No plan price for Spool has moved since we began logging in Aug 2026; the pricing page is re-read on every verification pass.
Who should pick Spool?
Pick Spool if you are Teams running Claude, Codex, and Gemini who want one shared session history, Developers on Apple Silicon Macs who need local, searchable agent archives, Privacy-conscious teams that want on-device storage before any sharing, CLI users who want to query or resume sessions straight from the terminal.
Look elsewhere if you are Teams not using agentic coding tools, Windows or Linux users — there's no build for those platforms, Teams expecting automatic cloud sync across machines, Solo developers happy with their agent's built-in session history.
Skip it if Skip Spool if your team is on Windows or Linux, or if you need your session history to replicate automatically to every teammate's machine without anyone publishing a link.
GeneratedReal-world workflow fit
Concrete scenarios for the personas Spool actually fits — and what changes day-one when you adopt it.
Claude, Codex, and Gemini are all pointed at ~/code/harbor. Spool's daemon indexes each session as it finishes, and the engineer opens Library Home, sees today's sessions grouped under the harbor directory, and pins the one where the single-flight fix finally landed.
Outcome: The next time someone hits the same race condition, the fix and its reasoning are one ⌘K search away instead of buried in a terminal that has already been cleared.
A teammate finishes a hard session and runs `spool share`. Spool reviews the exact record range and sensitive-data findings before publishing, the lead confirms, and the session goes out as a link. The rest of the team opens it and reads the route map top to bottom.
Outcome: The team sees which attempts dead-ended and which path landed, without anyone pasting a raw transcript into a channel.
On her own machine, a developer opens the shared session link, reads through to the final /goal, then runs `spool resume claude_7a55b1ee` to pull the work into her own agent.
Outcome: She continues from the point where the previous session landed instead of restarting from the original prompt.
Use cases
- Browse all AI sessions related to a project in one view, regardless of which agent was used.
- Search your library using ⌘K to instantly find a past discussion on JWT rotation or idempotency keys.
- Pin critical sessions like architectural decisions or design patterns for quick access.
- Let Claude Code load relevant past sessions via the /spool skill when building on prior work.
- Set the daemon to automatically index new sessions as soon as they're created.
- Use the CLI in scripts or custom workflows to query session content programmatically.
Setup time & first value
How long it actually takes to get something useful out of Spool — broken out by persona, not the marketing-page minute.
Running `npx @spool-lab/cli` downloads the package with no global install, so you can check `doctor` and be indexing sessions in a few minutes. Signing in for sharing uses a browser-approval flow that also works over SSH. Reading the docs site takes longer than getting the first session indexed.
Switching to or from Spool
How to bring data in from common predecessors and how to get it back out — written for the switcher, not the buyer.
- →From raw terminal scrollback: run `npx @spool-lab/cli`, let the daemon index your existing Claude, Codex, and Gemini sessions, then search the library instead of scrolling.
- →From pasting transcripts in Slack: replace the paste with `spool share` and send the link, which carries a route map and a resume command.
- →From a cloud tracing stack: keep the agent sources you already use, run Spool's daemon locally, and accept that history stays on-device until you publish a link.
- ↗To a cloud tracing stack like Langfuse or Helicone: you lose the on-device index and the publishable session format, and gain hosted dashboards plus automatic multi-device sync.
- ↗To your agent's built-in session history: you keep the transcripts but lose cross-agent browsing, the route map, and the ⌘K search across the whole library.
Integrations
Tutorials & Learning
YouTube returned 6 videos for “Spool”, and we withheld 6: 6 could not be judged, because “Spool” is a single word that other videos use for other things. We are showing none, because we could not prove any of them are about Spool.
Official links
What are the best Spool alternatives?
The closest alternatives to Spool we list are Helicone, LangSmith and Tokentelemetry. Ranked by direct product-type match, not category overlap.
| Alternative | Pricing | Starts at | Last verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| Helicone | Freemium | Pricing not published | — |
| LangSmith | Freemium | Pricing not published | — |
| Tokentelemetry | Free | Free | — |
Alternatives to Spool
View all
Helicone
Helicone is an AI gateway and LLM observability platform that routes, caches, and logs traffic across 100+ model providers.
LangSmith
LangSmith is agent and LLM observability from the LangChain team: trace, monitor, evaluate, and deploy AI agents.
Tokentelemetry
Local, MIT-licensed token usage and cost tracking for AI coding agents — reads the logs your agents already write.
Tools that pair well with Spool
Common stack mates teams adopt alongside Spool, with the specific reason each pairing earns its keep.
Helicone
Helicone is an AI gateway and LLM observability platform that routes, caches, and logs traffic across 100+ model providers.
LangSmith
LangSmith is agent and LLM observability from the LangChain team: trace, monitor, evaluate, and deploy AI agents.
Tokentelemetry
Local, MIT-licensed token usage and cost tracking for AI coding agents — reads the logs your agents already write.
Spool vs its closest rival
Spool's closest head-to-head is with Gem — Gem and Spool serve completely different needs. Gem is a paid all-in-one recruiting platform for talent acquisition teams, while Spool is a free open-source macOS tool for developers to search and organize their AI coding sessions. Your choice depends entirely on role: recruiting vs. development. Verdict generated
Head-to-head comparisons
Spool vs Gem
Gem and Spool serve completely different needs. Gem is a paid all-in-one recruiting platform for talent acquisition teams, while Spool is a free open-source macOS tool for developers to search and organize their AI coding sessions. Your choice depends entirely on role: recruiting vs. development.
GeneratedSpool vs Cognition Ai
Choose Spool if you're a developer needing to search and organize past AI sessions locally on macOS for free. Choose Cognition AI if you're an enterprise team needing an autonomous agent that writes, tests, and ships production code with a financial guarantee.
GeneratedSpool vs Poke Interaction Co
If you're a developer who lives in CLI and wants to search every AI coding session across agents without sending data to the cloud, Spool is the clear choice—and it's free. If you'd rather have an AI butler inside your messaging apps handling email, calendar, health, and automations, Poke's freemium tiers (Pro $19/mo) offer a more versatile, cross-platform assistant. Choose based on whether your pain point is 'finding old chat history' vs. 'getting tasks done without opening multiple apps.'
GeneratedFrequently asked questions
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