Fixing Claude Export Conversations

Fixing Claude Code Export Conversations

Reconstruct broken line wrapping in Claude Code exported .txt files.

Quick Start

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# Fix and show stats
uv run <skill-path>/scripts/fix-claude-export.py <export.txt> --stats

# Custom output
uv run <skill-path>/scripts/fix-claude-export.py <export.txt> -o fixed.txt

# Validate the result (53 automated checks)
uv run <skill-path>/scripts/validate-claude-export-fix.py <export.txt> fixed.txt

Replace <skill-path> with the resolved path to this skill's directory. Find it with:

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find ~/.claude -path "*/fixing-claude-export-conversations/scripts" -type d 2>/dev/null

Workflow

Copy this checklist and track progress:

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- [ ] Step 1: Locate the exported .txt file
- [ ] Step 2: Run fix script with --stats
- [ ] Step 3: Run validation suite
- [ ] Step 4: Spot-check output (tables, CJK paragraphs, tool results)
- [ ] Step 5: Deliver fixed file to user

Step 1: Locate the file. Claude Code exports use the naming pattern YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS-<slug>.txt.

Step 2: Run the fix script.

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uv run <skill-path>/scripts/fix-claude-export.py <input.txt> -o <output.txt> --stats

Review the stats output — typical results: 20-25% line reduction, 80+ table borders fixed, 160+ table cells fixed.

Step 3: Run the validation suite.

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uv run <skill-path>/scripts/validate-claude-export-fix.py <input.txt> <output.txt>

All checks must pass. If any fail, investigate before delivering. Use --verbose for full details on passing checks too.

Step 4: Spot-check. Open the output and verify:

• Tables have intact borders (box-drawing characters on single lines)
• CJK/English mixed text has pangu spacing (Portal 都需要, not Portal都需要)
• Tool result blocks (⎿) have complete content on joined lines
• Diff output within tool results has each line number on its own line

Step 5: Deliver the fixed file to the user.

What Gets Fixed

The script handles 10 content types using a state-machine with next-line look-ahead:

• User prompts (❯ prefix, dw=76 padding) — paragraph joins with pangu spacing
• Claude responses (● prefix) — narrative, bullet, and numbered list joins
• Claude paragraphs (2-space indent) — next-line look-ahead via _is_continuation_fragment
• Tables — border reconstruction, cell re-padding with pipe-count tracking
• Tool calls (● Bash( etc.) — path and argument reconstruction
• Tool results (⎿ prefix) — continuation joins including deeper-indented fragments
• Plan text (5-space indent) — next-line look-ahead via _is_plan_continuation_fragment
• Agent tree (├─/└─) — preserved structure
• Separators (────, ---) — never joined
• Tree connectors (standalone │) — preserved

Key Design Decisions

Next-line look-ahead (not dw thresholds): Instead of asking "was this line wrapped?" (fragile threshold), the script asks "does the next line look like a continuation?" by examining its content patterns — lowercase start, CJK ideograph start, opening bracket, hyphen/slash/underscore continuation.

Pangu spacing: Inserts spaces between ASCII alphanumeric characters and CJK ideographs at join boundaries. Also triggers for %, #, +, : adjacent to CJK.

Mid-token detection: Joins without space when boundaries indicate identifiers (BASE_ + URL), paths (documents + /05-team), or hyphenated names (ready + -together). Exception: -- prefix gets a space (run + --headed).

Safety

• Never modifies the original file
• Marker counts verified: ❯, ●, ✻, ⎿, … must match input/output
• Runaway join detection: warns if any line exceeds 500 display-width
• Strict UTF-8 encoding — no silent fallbacks

Dependencies

Python 3.10+ via uv run — zero external packages (stdlib only: unicodedata, argparse, re, pathlib, dataclasses).