I'm looking into a way to merge parts of files into currently open files. I know about the merge from python and hscript but its pretty limited in the pattern only referencing names. It would be great to get some way of traversing hips the same way there is for installed HDAs. Any tips on the subject?

I just copy and paste nodes between two open scenes. Open the scene that has parts you want in your new scene. Select them, CTRL-C then switch to the other copy of Houdini and paste them into the same context where they came from in the original scene.

This means your mouse should be over the network view when you paste them into the new scene.

Yea I too use two or more sessions from time to time.

However now I'm trying to find a way to merge only parameters or some nodes from different hip files on disc. I know I could expand them and pull out stuff as strings but I'm trying to skip that step if possible and access them the same way we are able to access HDAs.

I did have some luck with node.saveChildrenToFile and loadChildrenFromFile, but this still needs a additional file on disc which is what I'm trying to avoid.