Session Close

Session Close — write the baton

The read-back half of this is the session-start block in START-HERE.md; this skill is the write half. Its one job: make the next session start from knowledge, not from zero. Run the steps in order.

Hard rules (apply to every step)

• Memory-only. No live-system changes at close — read, capture, organize, write files. Nothing outward-facing.
• Capture durable signal only. A one-off ask (a quick draft, a single lookup) stays chat-only — no memory file for it or for the people/tools it mentioned once. Persist only reusable knowledge and things the founder will reference again. Unsure → skip; over-capturing creates orphans.
• Delete, don't archive. Superseded or empty files go to the system trash — no -old copies, no archive folders in the workspace; stale archives are how dead rules get trusted as current. Merge nuance into the survivor first.
• Verify, don't assert. Any "clean/confirmed" claim in the close summary must be backed by a command actually run this session.
• Date-stamp everything touched (first line = today, absolute date).

Steps

1. Inventory today's touches. List the files created or edited this session (from the session itself, not just filesystem timestamps).
2. Capture the signal — THE anti-repeat step. Extract from this conversation: (a) every correction the founder made or better-way that got confirmed → a dated file in memory/feedback/ (body: the incident, Why:, How to apply:); (b) every durable decision or ruling → update the matching file in memory/RULES.md / memory/project/, dated. Search for an existing file first — update it rather than spawning a near-duplicate.
3. Consolidate duplicates. If today produced two files covering one fact, merge into the canonical one (full-read both first), fix inbound links, trash the loser.
4. Index for next session. Add one-line pointers for today's new items to memory/MEMORY.md (rolling headline + the relevant anchor), and bump its date. If the index is over its size cap, compress the oldest entries into their linked files — the index stays pointers-only.
5. Update the open loops. memory/status/PENDING-TASKS.md: add new items, mark done ones, re-date deferred ones.
6. Write the handoff. memory/status/session-handoff-.md per the template: what shipped (verified, with evidence), what's in flight with its exact next step, decisions made, landmines, open questions for the founder. Written for a reader with zero context — include full paths and absolute dates.
7. Hygiene sweep. Trash today's scratch/zero-byte/untitled files — never files another session may own (when in doubt, leave it); date-stamp anything missing it.
8. Verified close summary. Print: files touched/created/merged/trashed · corrections + decisions captured (by name) · index updates · warnings (conflicts, skips, failures) — each "clean" claim paired with the command that proved it.

The mid-session habit this skill assumes

Don't save all capture for close: after every completed task, update the affected tracker or project file while context is fresh. Close then becomes a sweep, not an excavation — if closing regularly takes more than a few minutes, capture is happening too late.

Failure mode to avoid

Fail soft: if any step errors, log the warning and continue — never let one failed command halt the close. An imperfect handoff beats no handoff; the next session's cold start is the one reader you must not leave empty-handed.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: tkhribech
• Source: tkhribech/claude-founder-os
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.