# Message history

Message history is the most basic and important form of memory. It gives the LLM a view of recent messages in the context window, enabling your agent to reference earlier exchanges and respond coherently.

You can also retrieve message history to display past conversations in your UI.

> **Info:** Each message belongs to a thread (the conversation) and a resource (the user or entity it's associated with). See [Threads and resources](https://mastra.ai/docs/memory/storage) for more detail.

> **Warning:** When you use memory with a client application, send **only the new message** from the client instead of the full conversation history.
>
> Sending the full history is redundant because Mastra loads messages from storage, and it can cause message ordering bugs when client-side timestamps conflict with stored timestamps.
>
> For an AI SDK example, see [Using Mastra Memory](https://mastra.ai/guides/build-your-ui/ai-sdk-ui).

## Getting started

Install the Mastra memory module along with a [storage adapter](https://mastra.ai/docs/memory/storage) for your database. The examples below use `@mastra/libsql`, which stores data locally in a `mastra.db` file.

**npm**:

```bash
npm install @mastra/memory@latest @mastra/libsql@latest
```

**pnpm**:

```bash
pnpm add @mastra/memory@latest @mastra/libsql@latest
```

**Yarn**:

```bash
yarn add @mastra/memory@latest @mastra/libsql@latest
```

**Bun**:

```bash
bun add @mastra/memory@latest @mastra/libsql@latest
```

Message history requires a storage adapter to persist conversations. Configure storage on your Mastra instance if you haven't already:

```typescript
import { Mastra } from '@mastra/core'
import { LibSQLStore } from '@mastra/libsql'

export const mastra = new Mastra({
  storage: new LibSQLStore({
    id: 'mastra-storage',
    url: 'file:./mastra.db',
  }),
})
```

Instantiate a [`Memory`](https://mastra.ai/reference/memory/memory-class) instance in your agent:

```typescript
import { Memory } from '@mastra/memory'
import { Agent } from '@mastra/core/agent'

export const agent = new Agent({
  id: 'test-agent',
  memory: new Memory({
    options: {
      lastMessages: 10,
    },
  }),
})
```

When you call the agent, messages are automatically saved to the database. You can specify a `threadId`, `resourceId`, and optional `metadata`:

**.generate()**:

```typescript
await agent.generate('Hello', {
  memory: {
    thread: {
      id: 'thread-123',
      title: 'Support conversation',
      metadata: { category: 'billing' },
    },
    resource: 'user-456',
  },
})
```

**.stream()**:

```typescript
await agent.stream('Hello', {
  memory: {
    thread: {
      id: 'thread-123',
      title: 'Support conversation',
      metadata: { category: 'billing' },
    },
    resource: 'user-456',
  },
})
```

> **Info:** Threads and messages are created automatically when you call `agent.generate()` or `agent.stream()`, but you can also create them manually with [`createThread()`](https://mastra.ai/reference/memory/createThread) and [`saveMessages()`](https://mastra.ai/reference/memory/memory-class).

You can use this history in two ways:

- **Automatic inclusion**: Mastra automatically fetches and includes recent messages in the context window. By default, it includes the last 10 messages, keeping agents grounded in the conversation. You can adjust this number with `lastMessages`, but in most cases you don't need to think about it.
- [**Manual querying**](#querying): For more control, use the `recall()` function to query threads and messages directly. This lets you choose exactly which memories are included in the context window, or fetch messages to render conversation history in your UI.

> **Tip:** When memory is enabled, [Studio](https://mastra.ai/docs/studio/overview) uses message history to display past conversations in the chat sidebar.

## Accessing memory

To access memory functions for querying, cloning, or deleting threads and messages, call `getMemory()` on an agent:

```typescript
const agent = mastra.getAgentById('test-agent')
const memory = await agent.getMemory()
```

The `Memory` instance gives you access to functions for listing threads, recalling messages, cloning conversations, and more.

## Querying

Use these methods to fetch threads and messages for displaying conversation history in your UI or for custom memory retrieval logic.

> **Warning:** The memory system doesn't enforce access control. Before running any query, verify in your application logic that the current user is authorized to access the `resourceId` being queried.

### Threads

Use [`listThreads()`](https://mastra.ai/reference/memory/listThreads) to retrieve threads for a resource:

```typescript
const result = await memory.listThreads({
  filter: { resourceId: 'user-123' },
  perPage: false,
})
```

Paginate through threads:

```typescript
const result = await memory.listThreads({
  filter: { resourceId: 'user-123' },
  page: 0,
  perPage: 10,
})

console.log(result.threads) // thread objects
console.log(result.hasMore) // more pages available?
```

You can also filter by metadata and control sort order:

```typescript
const result = await memory.listThreads({
  filter: {
    resourceId: 'user-123',
    metadata: { status: 'active' },
  },
  orderBy: { field: 'createdAt', direction: 'DESC' },
})
```

To fetch a single thread by ID, use [`getThreadById()`](https://mastra.ai/reference/memory/getThreadById):

```typescript
const thread = await memory.getThreadById({ threadId: 'thread-123' })
```

### Messages

Once you have a thread, use [`recall()`](https://mastra.ai/reference/memory/recall) to retrieve its messages. It supports pagination, date filtering, and [semantic search](https://mastra.ai/docs/memory/semantic-recall).

Basic recall returns all messages from a thread:

```typescript
const { messages } = await memory.recall({
  threadId: 'thread-123',
  perPage: false,
})
```

Paginate through messages:

```typescript
const { messages } = await memory.recall({
  threadId: 'thread-123',
  page: 0,
  perPage: 50,
})
```

Filter by date range:

```typescript
const { messages } = await memory.recall({
  threadId: 'thread-123',
  filter: {
    dateRange: {
      start: new Date('2025-01-01'),
      end: new Date('2025-06-01'),
    },
  },
})
```

Fetch a single message by ID:

```typescript
const { messages } = await memory.recall({
  threadId: 'thread-123',
  include: [{ id: 'msg-123' }],
})
```

Fetch multiple messages by ID with surrounding context:

```typescript
const { messages } = await memory.recall({
  threadId: 'thread-123',
  include: [
    { id: 'msg-123' },
    {
      id: 'msg-456',
      withPreviousMessages: 3,
      withNextMessages: 1,
    },
  ],
})
```

Search by meaning (see [Semantic recall](https://mastra.ai/docs/memory/semantic-recall) for setup):

```typescript
const { messages } = await memory.recall({
  threadId: 'thread-123',
  vectorSearchString: 'project deadline discussion',
  threadConfig: {
    semanticRecall: true,
  },
})
```

### UI format

Message queries return `MastraDBMessage[]` format. To display messages in a frontend, you may need to convert them to a format your UI library expects. For example, [`toAISdkV5Messages`](https://mastra.ai/reference/ai-sdk/to-ai-sdk-v5-messages) converts messages to AI SDK UI format.

## Thread cloning

Thread cloning creates a copy of an existing thread with its messages. This is useful for branching conversations, creating checkpoints before a potentially destructive operation, or testing variations of a conversation.

```typescript
const { thread, clonedMessages } = await memory.cloneThread({
  sourceThreadId: 'thread-123',
  title: 'Branched conversation',
})
```

You can filter which messages get cloned (by count or date range), specify custom thread IDs, and use utility methods to inspect clone relationships.

See [`cloneThread()`](https://mastra.ai/reference/memory/cloneThread) and [clone utilities](https://mastra.ai/reference/memory/clone-utilities) for the full API.

## Deleting messages

To remove messages from a thread, use [`deleteMessages()`](https://mastra.ai/reference/memory/deleteMessages). You can delete by message ID or clear all messages from a thread.