Session Restoration Skill

This skill helps restore full context when starting a new Claude session after a previous session was closed, crashed, or became too large.

When to Use

Use this skill when:

• Starting a new session after a previous one ended

• User asks to restore previous context

• Session was interrupted or overflowed

• User mentions "restore", "previous session", "last session"

• User mentions (Russian): "восстанови", "восстанов", "предыдущая сессия", "прошлая сессия", "продолжи работу"

Restoration Process

Step 1: Find and Analyze Recent Session Files

Use the session-summary CLI tool to list recent sessions with automatic topic extraction:

List recent sessions (default: last 12 hours, includes both projects/ and archive/)

session-summary.exe list

Extend time window to 24 hours

session-summary.exe list --max-age-hours 24

Only search projects directory (exclude archive)

session-summary.exe list --projects-only

What you'll see for each session:

• Date/time: When it was last modified

• Size: File size (indicates session length)

• Source: [projects] or [archive]

• Topic: Simple label (Agent tasks, User session, Tool usage, etc.)

• Multi-vector data: Raw data from different event sources with emoji labels:

• 📋 Tasks - Agent task prompts

• 💬 User - User messages

• 🔧 Tools - Tool operations with file paths

• ⚙️ Bash - Bash command outputs

• 🔍 Search - Web search queries

Example output:

Recent Sessions:

1. 8f59d651-cada-4484-9153-5cc577137486 Jan 26 04:33 | 32.42 MB | [projects] | Agent tasks 📋 Tasks: Fix the dropdown z-order problem... → Fix the dropdown... → Fix the dropdown... 💬 User: дропдауны либо с 0 опасити... → закомить работу... 🔧 Tools: Bash, Bash, Bash, Write

2. 4e0b5d3d-c6d1-497d-9c6f-96e83980c7a0 Jan 26 05:47 | 103.69 MB | [projects] | Agent tasks 📋 Tasks: Implement MOEX ISS API connector... → Implement MOEX ISS API connector... → Implement MOEX ISS API connector... 💬 User: <ide_opened_file>The user opened... → да, какие проблемы выявлены... 🔧 Tools: Bash, Bash, Bash, Task, Task

3. 3162998f-09ca-4efc-b659-8507eb57bd37 Jan 26 00:21 | 232.79 MB | [archive] | User session 💬 User: Create 2-turn conversation test... → Run the tests... 🔧 Tools: Task, Bash, Grep, Read, Write ⚙️ Bash: cargo check; compiling...

To load a session, use:

1. session-summary.exe load "C:\Users...\8f59d651-cada-4484-9153-5cc577137486.jsonl"
2. session-summary.exe load "C:\Users...\4e0b5d3d-c6d1-497d-9c6f-96e83980c7a0.jsonl"
3. session-summary.exe load "C:\Users...\3162998f-09ca-4efc-b659-8507eb57bd37.jsonl"

Ask user which session to restore, then copy-paste the corresponding load command

Step 2: Deep Dive into Selected Session

Once user selects a session, copy-paste the corresponding load command from the list output:

Copy the full command from "To load a session" section above

session-summary.exe load "C:\Users...\session-id.jsonl"

Example output:

═══════════════════════════════════════ Session: 8f59d651-cada-4484-9153-5cc577137486 ═══════════════════════════════════════ Date: 2026-01-26 04:33:18 Size: 32.42 MB Topic: Agent tasks

Agent Tasks 📋 (126 tasks)

1. СРОЧНО! Dropdown перекрывается другими элементами (footer, другие UI)...
2. Fix dropdown z-order problem in Chart Settings modal
3. Implement hover states for dropdown items
4. Add auto-sizing to dropdown containers ... (122 more)

User Messages 💬 (2 messages)

1. закомить работу в ваших крейтах (чужую не комить)
2. итого подведи итог что мы сделали по унификации...

Tool Operations 🔧 (7 operations)

1. Task
2. Bash
3. Edit (zengeld-terminal/ui/chart_settings.rs)
4. Read (zengeld-terminal/ui/dropdown.rs) ... (3 more)

Files Modified 📁 (17 files)

1. zengeld-terminal/ui/chart_settings.rs
2. zengeld-terminal/ui/dropdown.rs
3. zengeld-terminal/ui/modal.rs ... (14 more)

Git Branch: zengeld-chart

The tool automatically:

• Reads last segment of session from compact_boundary to end

• Collects data from 6+ event types (AgentProgress, User, Assistant, BashProgress, QueryUpdate, FileSnapshot)

• Shows all data vectors with counts and previews

• Does NOT try to infer topics - just shows raw data

• Extracts git branch and commit hints for further analysis

Step 3: Search Git History

Search for related commits to understand what was accomplished:

Extract keywords from session (project names, features, etc.)

Then search git log with those keywords

git log --all --oneline --grep="keyword1" --grep="keyword2" -i --since="1 week ago" | head -30

Get detailed commit info

git show --stat <commit-hash>

Look for:

• Commits made during or after the session timestamp

• Commit messages describing the feature/fix being worked on

• File changes that match the session's tracked files

Step 4: Analyze Multi-Vector Data & Provide Context Summary

IMPORTANT: The parser shows RAW DATA in multiple vectors. Your job is to ANALYZE this data and understand what was being worked on.

Look at all vectors:

• Agent Tasks - What agents were doing (feature implementation, debugging, refactoring)

• User Messages - What user was asking for, decisions made

• Tool Operations - Which files were read/edited, what operations performed

• Bash Activities - Build/test commands, git operations

• Web Searches - Research topics, API documentation lookups

• Files Modified - Scope of changes

Present a structured summary:

Session Restoration Summary

Session: [session-id] Date: [timestamp] Project: [project-name]

What Was Being Worked On:

[Analyze the multi-vector data to determine the main task/feature/bugfix]

Files Being Worked On:

• path/to/file1.rs (main implementation)
• path/to/file2.rs (supporting changes)
• ...

Related Git Commits:

• [hash] commit message (date)
• [hash] commit message (date)

Context from Session Data:

• Agent focus: [from Tasks vector]
• User requests: [from User Messages vector]
• Technical operations: [from Tools/Bash vectors]

Recommendations:

• Continue from: [specific file or task]
• Next steps: [based on commit history and unfinished work]

Important Notes

• Session files can be VERY large (2GB+) - session-summary handles this efficiently

• Tool uses tail + reverse parsing - reads from end, stops early

• Multi-vector approach - parser collects raw data, you analyze it

• Don't assume topic from label - "Agent tasks" is just a simple label, analyze the actual data

• Git commits are the best context - they show what was actually accomplished

• Timestamps help - cross-reference session time with commit times

• Time filtering - default 12 hours, can extend to 24 hours with --max-age-hours

Example Usage

User: "restore previous session" Assistant: [Runs restore-session skill]

I'll list recent sessions from the last 12 hours:

[runs: session-summary.exe list]

Recent Sessions:

1. 8f59d651-cada-4484-9153-5cc577137486 Jan 26 04:33 | 32.42 MB | [projects] | Agent tasks 📋 Tasks: Fix the dropdown z-order problem... → Fix the dropdown... → Fix the dropdown... 💬 User: дропдауны либо с 0 опасити... → закомить работу... 🔧 Tools: Bash, Bash, Bash, Write

2. 4e0b5d3d-c6d1-497d-9c6f-96e83980c7a0 Jan 26 05:47 | 103.69 MB | [projects] | Agent tasks 📋 Tasks: Implement MOEX ISS API connector... → Implement MOEX ISS API connector... 💬 User: <ide_opened_file>... → да, какие проблемы выявлены... 🔧 Tools: Bash, Bash, Task, Task

3. 3162998f-09ca-4efc-b659-8507eb57bd37 Jan 26 00:21 | 232.79 MB | [archive] | User session 💬 User: Create 2-turn conversation test... → Run the tests... 🔧 Tools: Task, Bash, Grep, Read ⚙️ Bash: cargo check; compiling...

To load a session, use:

1. session-summary.exe load "C:\Users...\8f59d651-cada-4484-9153-5cc577137486.jsonl" ...

Which session would you like to restore? (1-3)

User: "1" Assistant: [Runs the load command]

[runs: session-summary.exe load "C:\Users...\8f59d651-cada-4484-9153-5cc577137486.jsonl"]

[Analyzes multi-vector data]

Based on the session data:

• Main task: Fixing dropdown z-order issue in Chart Settings modal
• User requested: Commit work in your crates, summarize unification work
• Agent worked on: UI dropdown rendering, z-order fixes, hover states
• Files modified: chart_settings.rs, dropdown.rs, modal.rs

[Searches git log for related commits] [Provides full context summary]

Implementation Tips

• Always start with the most recent sessions from the active project

• Check both locations: ~/.claude/projects/ and ~/.claude/archive/

• Parse JSONL carefully: Each line is a separate JSON object

• Cross-reference: Session files + git log = complete picture

• Ask user: If multiple sessions found, let user choose

Limitations

• Cannot restore actual conversation history (that's internal to Claude)

• Can only infer context from files and commits

• Very old sessions might not have related commits anymore

• Archived sessions may be compressed or incomplete