Continue Claude Work Skill for Claude

Continue Claude Work

Overview

Recover actionable context from a prior Claude Code session and continue execution in the current conversation. Use local session files as the source of truth, then continue with concrete edits and checks — not just summarizing.

Why this exists instead of claude --resume: claude --resume replays the full session transcript into the context window. For long sessions this wastes tokens on resolved issues and stale state. This skill selectively reconstructs only actionable context — the latest compact summary, pending work, known errors, and current workspace state — giving a fresh start with prior knowledge.

File Structure Reference

For directory layout, JSONL schemas, and compaction block format, see references/file_structure.md.

Workflow

Step 1: Extract Context (single script call)

Run the bundled extraction script. It handles session discovery, compact-boundary parsing, noise filtering, and workspace state in one call:

# Latest session for current project
python3 scripts/extract_resume_context.py

# Specific session by ID
python3 scripts/extract_resume_context.py --session <SESSION_ID>

# Search by topic
python3 scripts/extract_resume_context.py --query "auth feature"

# List recent sessions
python3 scripts/extract_resume_context.py --list

The script outputs a structured Markdown briefing containing:

• Session metadata from sessions-index.json
• Compact summary — Claude's own distilled summary from the last compaction boundary (highest-signal context)
• Last user requests — the most recent explicit asks
• Last assistant responses — what was claimed done
• Errors encountered — tool failures and error outputs
• Unresolved tool calls — indicates interrupted session
• Subagent workflow state — which subagents completed, which were interrupted, their last outputs
• Session end reason — clean exit, interrupted (ctrl-c), error cascade, or abandoned
• Files touched — files created/edited/read during the session
• MEMORY.md — persistent cross-session notes
• Git state — current status, branch, recent log

The script automatically skips the currently active session (modified < 60s ago) to avoid self-extraction.

Step 2: Branch by Session End Reason

The briefing includes a Session end reason. Use it to choose the right continuation strategy:

| End Reason | Strategy |

|-----------|----------|

| Clean exit | Session completed normally. Read the last user request that was addressed. Continue from pending work if any. |

| Interrupted | Tool calls were dispatched but never got results (likely ctrl-c or timeout). Retry the interrupted tool calls or assess whether they are still needed. |

| Error cascade | Multiple API errors caused the session to fail. Do not retry blindly — diagnose the root cause first. |

| Abandoned | User sent a message but got no response. Treat the last user message as the current request. |

If the briefing has a Subagent Workflow section with interrupted subagents, check what each was doing and whether to retry or skip.

Step 3: Reconcile and Continue

Before making changes:

• Confirm the current directory matches the session's project.
• If the git branch has changed from the session's branch, note this and decide whether to switch.
• Inspect files related to pending work — verify old claims still hold.
• Do not assume old claims are valid without checking.

Then:

• Implement the next concrete step aligned with the latest user request.
• Run deterministic verification (tests, type-checks, build).
• If blocked, state the exact blocker and propose one next action.

Step 4: Report

Respond concisely:

• Context recovered: which session, key findings from the briefing
• Work executed: files changed, commands run, test results
• Remaining: pending tasks, if any

How the Script Works

Compact-Boundary-Aware Extraction

The script finds the last compact boundary in the session JSONL and extracts its summary. This is the single highest-signal piece of context in any long session -- Claude's own distilled understanding of the entire conversation up to that point. For details on compaction format and JSONL schemas, see references/file_structure.md.

Size-Adaptive Strategy

| Session size | Strategy |

|-------------|----------|

| Has compactions | Read last compact summary + all post-compact messages |

| < 500 KB, no compactions | Read last 60% of messages |

| 500 KB - 5 MB | Read last 30% of messages |

| > 5 MB | Read last 15% of messages |

Subagent Context Extraction

When a session has subagent directories (<session-id>/subagents/), the script parses each subagent's JSONL to extract agent type, completion status, and last text output. This enables recovery of multi-agent workflows -- e.g., if a 32-subagent evaluation pipeline was interrupted, the briefing shows which agents completed and which need retry.

Session End Reason Detection

The script classifies how the session ended:

• completed -- assistant had the last word (clean exit)
• interrupted -- unresolved tool calls (ctrl-c or timeout)
• error_cascade -- 3+ API errors
• abandoned -- user sent a message with no response

Noise Filtering

These message types are skipped (37-53% of lines in real sessions):

• progress, queue-operation, file-history-snapshot -- operational noise
• api_error, turn_duration, stop_hook_summary -- system subtypes
• <task-notification>, <system-reminder> -- filtered from user text extraction

Guardrails

• Do not run claude --resume or claude --continue — this skill provides context recovery within the current session.
• Do not treat compact summaries as complete truth — they are lossy. Always verify claims against current workspace.
• Do not overwrite unrelated working-tree changes.
• Do not load the full session file into context — always use the script.

Limitations

• Cannot recover sessions whose .jsonl files have been deleted from ~/.claude/projects/.
• Cannot access sessions from other machines (files are local only).
• Edit tool operations show deltas, not full file content — use claude-code-history-files-finder for full file recovery.
• Compact summaries are lossy — early conversation details may be missing.
• sessions-index.json can be stale (entries pointing to deleted files). The script falls back to filesystem-based discovery.

Example Trigger Phrases

• "continue work from session abc123-..."
• "don't resume, just read the .claude files and continue"
• "check what I was working on in the last session and keep going"
• "search my sessions for the PR review work"