Resume work

Resume Work — Reload State From Disk

The other half of /handoff. Reads the written record rather than a summary of a summary.

Step 1: Find the handoff

~/.claude/skills/resume-work/scripts/find-handoff.sh            # newest for the current branch
~/.claude/skills/resume-work/scripts/find-handoff.sh --all      # every branch, newest first

Then read the file it prints. Read it whole — the Ruled out section is usually near the bottom and it is the most valuable part.

No handoff found? Say so plainly and fall back to git: git log --oneline -15, git status, git diff --stat. A reconstruction from history is worth less than a handoff, so say which one you are working from.

Step 2: Check the record against reality

The handoff describes the world when it was written. Verify before trusting it:

git rev-parse --abbrev-ref HEAD          # same branch?
git status --short                       # same files dirty?
git log --oneline -5                     # commits since?

Reconcile out loud when they disagree — someone else may have pushed, or you may have committed after writing it. The repo is the truth; the handoff is the intent. Where they conflict, say so rather than silently trusting either.

Step 3: Report, then stop

RESUMED — <title>
  Handoff:  <path>  (<age>)
  Branch:   <branch>   <n> commits since the handoff
  Dirty:    <n> files

  Stood at:  <one line>
  Ruled out: <one line — so it is in context before any suggestion>
  Blockers:  <or "none">

  → Next: <the next step, verbatim from the handoff>

Then stop and wait. Do not start the next step. Resuming is loading state, not resuming execution — the user may have changed their mind since writing it, and that is exactly the moment to find out.

Rules

• Surface Ruled out before proposing anything. Its whole purpose is stopping a fresh session from re-walking dead ends. Reading it after you have already suggested an approach is too late.
• Report the handoff's age. One from three weeks ago on a branch with twenty new commits is archaeology, not state. Say so.
• Never mark a handoff done or delete it. They are append-only. /handoff writes the next one.
• Don't re-read every file it mentions. It names paths so you can go to them when the work needs it, not so you can reload the whole session's reads into a clean window. That would undo the reset you just paid for.

Related

• /handoff — writes the file this reads
• /driver — if the work is a /architect plan, read plans/{slug}/state/ too; the handoff covers session narrative, not plan state

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_{Script paths above assume a user-level install (~/.claude/skills/). Installed as a plugin or per-project, the scripts still sit beside this file — swap the prefix for ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/skills/resume-work or .claude/skills/resume-work respectively.}