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-onlyWhat 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-chartThe 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