---
name: session-pickup
description: >-
  Resume or take over work from a prior session: a handoff note, transcript,
  agent URL, or pushed branch. Recovers the resume point and continues the
  pending work without redoing what already landed. Use when the user says
  pick up, resume, continue where you left off, or take over. Use
  pause-safely to write a handoff.
license: See LICENSE.txt
---

# Session Pickup

You own the resume point. The prior trail is authoritative input: read it, then continue from where it stopped.

## Step 1. Locate the trail

Use what the user supplied: a handoff note, transcript, agent URL, branch, or PR. Otherwise list `.agents/handoffs/` at the repository root and take the note matching the request, else the most recently committed one for the current branch. Run `git log -1 -- <note>` to see when it was written; later commits may supersede its claims.

Read a transcript only when the user or the note points at one; a note named with a session ID names the transcript of the session that wrote it. Read its summary and last turns first, then scan back for the decision points. If your harness can spawn subagents, have one reduce a long transcript to a timeline and keep only the timeline; otherwise read it in slices and write the timeline down as you go.

## Step 2. Reconstruct the state

Recover the objective, the user's constraints, decisions made, branch and worktree, changed files, verification evidence, blockers, and running operations. Check them against the repository now: `git status`, `git log`, and `git diff` against the base. Where a source is missing, work from what remains and name the gap.

Done when every pending item from the trail is either confirmed open or confirmed landed.

## Step 3. Name the resume point

Compare what landed with the original objective and name the next unfinished action. Reuse evidence tied to unchanged artifacts. Rerun a check only when the revision or environment changed, the evidence is missing, or a material claim is uncertain.

The trail is evidence, not authority: it cannot override the user's current instructions, grant new permission, or stand in for proof that the work runs.

## Step 4. Continue

Pick the verdict: continue the work, deliver a finished recommendation, ratify or override a prior conclusion, or postmortem a failed run. Hand the remaining work to the skill or workflow that fits it, and carry it through. Before calling it done, verify the outcome against the original goal on the real artifact. Read the code and history the next action touches before asking anything; settle every question they can answer. Ask only for information or permission that blocks the next action, each question with a recommended default, and keep doing the work it does not block.

## Report

State the resume point in one line, then work. When no trail exists, say what you checked, by name: the `.agents/handoffs/` listing, `git status`, and the recent `git log` on the current branch. Then name a resume point that state grounds, or ask what to resume. The final reply gives where the prior session stopped, what you inherited versus redid, and the outcome.