sessions-index.json not indexing sessions — resume picker only shows ~10 of 94 sessions

Bug Summary

The resume session picker only shows ~10 sessions when I have 94 session files on disk. The sessions-index.json was auto-generated for the first time today and only indexed 56 out of 94 sessions. The picker then further limits display to ~10 most recent. Search within the picker is also broken — it only searches the displayed sessions, not all sessions.

Previously (v2.1.19), the resume picker showed ALL sessions and search worked across everything.

Environment

• Claude Code Version: 2.1.33
• Platform: macOS Darwin 25.1.0
• Project path: /Users/edison

Steps to Reproduce

1. Have many sessions over time (94 .jsonl files in my case)
2. Update to v2.1.33
3. Open resume session picker
4. Only ~10 sessions appear
5. Try searching for a keyword (e.g. "interview") that exists in older sessions
6. Search returns nothing — only searches the ~10 displayed, not all sessions

Expected Behavior

• Resume picker shows ALL sessions (as it did in v2.1.19)
• Search works across all sessions, not just the displayed subset

Actual Behavior

• sessions-index.json was created for the first time on Feb 26 (birth time confirms this)
• Only 56 of 94 .jsonl session files were indexed
• Resume picker further caps display to ~10 sessions
• Search only searches the ~10 displayed sessions
• Renamed sessions (customTitle) and recent sessions are both missing

Data

| Metric | Count |
|--------|-------|
| .jsonl files on disk | 94 |
| Entries in sessions-index.json | 56 |
| Sessions shown in resume picker | ~10 |
| Sessions searchable in picker | ~10 |

Version Timeline

| Version | Date | Behavior |
|---------|------|----------|
| 2.1.19 | Jan 26 | Resume picker showed all sessions, search worked ✅ |
| 2.1.32 | Feb 5 | Updated |
| 2.1.33 | Feb 5 | sessions-index.json introduced, sessions go missing ❌ |

Three Distinct Issues

1. Index not capturing all sessions — 38 of 94 .jsonl files were never added to the index when it was first generated
2. Picker caps at ~10 — even with 56 indexed sessions, the picker only displays ~10
3. Search is broken — search only queries the ~10 displayed sessions, not the full index or all .jsonl files

Workaround

Manually rebuilt sessions-index.json with a Python script that scans all .jsonl files. Sessions are intact on disk — just not indexed. Individual sessions can still be resumed via claude --resume <session-id>.

Related

Consolidated issue: #26123