# Sessions
By default, Loki does not send back all previous messages in a conversation to the model. This means that each time you 
query a model, it's essentially a one-off. However, Loki does support chat-like conversations with LLMs via its 
`sessions` mechanism.

Sessions in Loki enable the familiar conversational interactions with LLMs. This means you can reference previous 
answers and ask follow-up questions and the model will know what you're referring to.

Sessions can be temporary, or can be saved so you can continue conversations at a later time.

Saved sessions are stored in the `sessions` subdirectory of the Loki configuration directory. The location of the 
`sessions` directory varies by system, so you can use the following command to find the `sessions` directory if you need 
it:

```shell
loki --info | grep 'sessions_dir' | awk '{print $2}'
```

## Usage
When you use a session in Loki, you can either persist it or discard it once you're done. Sessions you discard are then
just considered 'temporary' sessions.

![Persistent Session Example](./images/sessions/sessions-example.gif)

Sessions you persist and then load again later will inherit the same configuration as was used during the last usage of 
that session. That is to say, if you had certain tools or MCP servers enabled when you were last in that session, they 
will be available again when you continue that session.

## Configuration
Session behavior can be configured from the global Loki configuration file. The location of this file varies between 
systems so you can use the following command to locate it on your system:

```shell
loki --info | grep 'config_file' | awk '{print $2}'
```

The following settings are available to customize the default behavior of sessions globally:

| Setting                  | Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            |
|--------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| `save_session`           | Controls the persistence of the session. <br><ul><li>If `true`, then any time you're in a session, changes will auto-save unless explicitly defined otherwise.</li> <li>If `false`, then any time you're in a session, changes will not auto-save unless explicitly specified otherwise.</li><li>If `null`, Loki will always prompt the user for what to do.</li></ul> |
| `compression_threshold`  | Defines the token count threshold at which Loki will compress the session to save on the context length                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                |
| `summarization_prompt`   | This is the prompt that is used to compress the session up to a given point when compression is triggered                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              |
| `summary_context_prompt` | This is the prompt that's used to add the summarized conversation generated by the `summarization_prompt` as context to the model                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      |