claude-code-skills-reference/claude-export-txt-better/SKILL.md

name, description

name

description

fixing-claude-export-conversations

Fixes broken line wrapping in Claude Code exported conversation files (.txt), reconstructing tables, paragraphs, paths, and tool calls that were hard-wrapped at fixed column widths. Includes an automated validation suite (generic, file-agnostic checks). Triggers when the user has a Claude Code export file with broken formatting, mentions "fix export", "fix conversation", "exported conversation", "make export readable", references a file matching YYYY-MM-DD-HHMMSS-*.txt, or has a .txt file with broken tables, split paths, or mangled tool output from Claude Code.

Fixing Claude Code Export Conversations

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

Quick Start

# 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:

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

Workflow

Copy this checklist and track progress:

- [ ] 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.

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.

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).