Resuming a Previous Session

When a Claude Code session ends, or its context window fills, Claude Code saves the conversation and the next session starts with no memory of it. PRIMA Memory lets Claude find that saved conversation and read the parts it needs. You can then carry on without explaining the work again.

Ask in Plain Words

1. Start a new Claude Code session in the same workspace as the earlier one.
2. Tell Claude what you were working on, for example “carry on with the Spring Workshop agenda from yesterday”.
3. Let Claude search your history and open the session that matches.
4. Check the summary Claude gives you of what was done and what was left, then continue.

Behind the scenes Claude uses search_history to find the session, or get_recent_sessions when you ask about your latest work. It then opens the right session with get_session_details, and the Tools Reference describes each of these tools.

Questions like these work well.

• “What did we do last session?”
• “Where did we get to with the P012 budget yesterday?”
• “Find the session where we chose the workshop venue and tell me why we picked it.”

Use the /save and /resume Commands

AI Business OS includes two commands that make resuming exact.

1. Run /save before you end a session, and note the time it returns, such as 15:40.
2. In the next session, run /resume with that time, such as /resume 15:40.

With PRIMA Memory installed, /resume uses get_recent_sessions, get_session_details and search_history to find the session and load its detail. Without PRIMA Memory, /resume falls back to the session history kept in the workspace’s state.json file, which records far less. The /resume command page lists every form the command accepts, and Resuming a Session covers the PRIMA Project Management version.

Keep What Claude Loads Small

A full session transcript can take up a large part of Claude’s context window. That is the same space PRIMA Memory exists to protect, so recall works best when Claude follows four habits.

1. Claude searches first with search_history, because the results show the session ID, time and title, and often answer the question on their own.
2. Claude shows you the matches and lets you confirm which session is relevant before it opens one.
3. Claude opens the chosen session with get_session_details at the summary detail level and takes only what it needs, such as the last action, the key decisions, the files changed and the next step.
4. Claude opens one session at a time when it has to compare several, and notes the key points from each before opening the next.

Watch for three habits that waste context. Claude should not open every search result to be thorough. It should not load a full transcript when the search summary already answers the question, or open several sessions before you have said which one you need.

Detail Levels

get_session_details limits how much of each message it shows.

Detail level	Characters shown per message
summary	2,000
standard (the default)	5,000
full	No limit

A message longer than the limit ends with a note giving the limit and suggesting detail_level: "full". Ask Claude for the full level only when you need the complete text of a specific session.

Make the Habits Permanent

These habits last longer when they live in your workspace CLAUDE.md file, which Claude reads at the start of every session. You could add a section like this one.

## Session Recall

- Search with search_history before opening any session.
- Show me the matches and wait for me to confirm which one is relevant.
- Open one session at a time with get_session_details at detail_level "summary".
- Take only the last action, key decisions, files changed and next step.

CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md Files explains how the workspace instruction files work.

What You Cannot Resume

• Sessions from another workspace. PRIMA Memory reads the Claude Code conversations of the workspace it runs in, so open the other workspace to resume its work.
• VS Code Copilot Chat and Codex sessions. search_history can find them, but get_session_details opens only Claude Code conversations from this workspace and entries in the shared project log.
• Deleted conversations. When a conversation file no longer exists, get_session_details reports that it cannot find the session. An extract of it may still survive in .prima-memory/extracts/.