Context Crystal · Tutorial

Turn your AI conversation history into a private knowledge handle.

Your ChatGPT and Claude threads are full of research, decisions, and frameworks you built over months. Export the archive, upload it, and keep that context available forever — under your account, encrypted, and no one else can see it.

1

Export your conversation archive

Both ChatGPT and Claude let you download a full export of your conversation history.

ChatGPT
  1. Open ChatGPT and click your profile icon (top right)
  2. Go to Settings → Data controls
  3. Click Export data and confirm
  4. Wait for the email from OpenAI (usually a few minutes)
  5. Download the ZIP — it contains conversations.json and HTML files
Claude (claude.ai)
  1. Open Claude and click your profile icon
  2. Go to Settings → Privacy
  3. Click Export conversations
  4. Download the JSON or ZIP file
What's in the archive? A structured record of every conversation — who said what, when. The ZIP typically includes a conversations.json file and optionally per-conversation HTML pages. You own all of it.
2

Upload to PDC Dev Studio or compress via API

Two paths depending on how you want to work.

Studio · No code required

Upload the ZIP directly to a Studio thread

Open a new thread in PDC Dev Studio and attach your export ZIP as a file. The Studio reads the HTML and JSON files inside automatically — you can start asking questions about your conversation history immediately. No setup, no code.

Note: this path works within a single thread session. The ZIP content is read up to 50,000 characters per upload.

API · Permanent private Crystal

Compress to a hosted Crystal handle

For a permanent, reusable Crystal you can query from any tool: extract the text from your conversations.json, then send it to POST /v1/compress. You get back a ctx_... handle that you can query indefinitely via POST /v1/context/run.

Get a free API key at Developers → API keys.

3

Query your history

Once uploaded or compressed, you can ask questions against your own archived conversations: "What framework did I work out for X?", "What did I research about Y six months ago?", "Summarize my decisions on Z."

The answers are grounded in your own words, not a general model. You are the source.

Your archive stays private

Open the Studio Get an API key About Context Crystals