Chat: a small conversation search over messages and answers #2018

Problem

I look for an earlier decision, command or error in a long conversation. The browser's own Find only sees the rows already rendered, so unloaded pages and folded tool or thinking blocks are missed.

I read #180, its closing notes, #1008 and #1140. I am not asking to restore the Find panel that was built and removed before release. I am asking about the smaller version #180 itself describes.

Proposal

Search the current pane's conversation in that smaller scope:

• Search user messages and the agent's final answers only, not tool output or thinking.
• Show matches as a list of snippets; picking one jumps to that message.
• No inline highlight and no next/previous bar.
• Open it from the command palette or the pane's ⋯ menu, so nothing is added to the phone's screen.
• Hide it for a remote PC whose bridge bundle does not have it.
• Measure a long session's search time before deciding how much history to search.

If that scope is still too costly, please say what would make it acceptable. I would keep the rest as a local patch rather than push a larger feature.

Where

Chat and prompt cards.

Where it exists today

The Codex desktop app has Find in chat over older pages, through its server-side occurrence search; its notes in #180 list the cost of copying that here. Ovis has Find in terminal (Mod+Shift+F), and the browser's Find remains for the loaded rows.

Workarounds and alternatives

Browser Find, Find in terminal, scrolling, or asking the agent to find it. None searches the chat's parsed history across unloaded pages.