Picking up your work in a new session

This lesson is still being tested: it improves with learners' feedback. If something is unclear, it is the lesson that needs fixing, not you.

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to

open a working session in four steps;
choose between reopening an old session and opening a new one;
check the pick-up summary against your journal;
fix a pick-up that does not fit.

Why it matters to you

A real project is done in several sittings. Between two sessions, you forget details, and a new Claude Code session does not remember your conversation. With a two-minute ritual at the start and at the end of each session, you always pick up in the right place. You did it once during the workshop; here, it becomes a reflex.

Before you start


You need	The Claude app with the Code tab, and your mon-espace-ia folder after the workshop (lesson 4)
Cost	Claude Pro subscription at the minimum: €18 per month excl. VAT, price shown in France on 24/10/2026
Duration	30 minutes, then 3 short sessions during the week
Reminder	Your journal is reread at every session: nothing from the “never” list in it

Understand it in 3 minutes

A session is a conversation of its own. According to the app’s documentation (24/10/2026), in the Code tab each session has its own history and its own folder, independent of the other sessions; the sidebar lists them.

Reopen or start over?

	Reopen the old session	Open a new session
When	The same day, to finish the same task	Another day, or a new task
What Claude knows	The whole conversation	Your files: `CLAUDE.md`, the journal, the project sheet (plus, possibly, a few notes from its automatic memory)
The risk	A very long conversation, which uses up more of your usage limit	Nothing written down, nothing picked up

The longer a conversation gets, the more of your usage limit it consumes (Claude Code documentation on costs), and starting a new one helps when you are close to that limit (Claude help).

The session ritual:

At the start, four steps: new session, mon-espace-ia folder, Manual mode, then “Where were we on my project?”. In the kit, the “Start of session” instruction in CLAUDE.md does the rest: Claude reads the last page of the journal and the sheet of the current project, sums up, and asks you whether it is right.
At the end, one step: have the day’s page written, with the next action.

Do it together

1Step 1: Open the session

In the Code tab, open a New session (shortcut: Cmd + N on Mac, Ctrl + N on Windows).
Check the folder: mon-espace-ia. Check the mode: Manual.
Write:

Where were we on my project?

2Step 2: Check the summary

Open the last page of your journal folder next to it. Compare three points:

the last result: is it really what you had done?
the decisions: all there, with nothing added?
the next action: the same as in the journal?

If a point of the summary is not in the journal:

Where does this information come from? Show me the line in the journal.

3Step 3: A short session

Do the next action, or part of it: 15 minutes are enough. Keep the method: say, discuss, do, check.

4Step 4: Close the session

Let's stop here: propose today's journal page, with the next action. Show it to me before writing it.

Read the proposal. Is the next action one single thing, and concrete? Correct it if needed, then allow the writing. If the day’s page already exists, the kit asks to add a section at the end, without erasing anything: check that this is what happens.

When the pick-up does not fit

What you see	Why	What you do
Claude knows nothing about your work	Another folder is open, or no journal page exists	Check the folder; if there is no journal, tell it in 3 lines where you are, then have the page written
The summary talks about an old step	The last session was not written down	Say what has been done since, then have the journal updated
The summary adds a piece of information	Claude filled in on its own	“Where does this information come from?”; remove it if it is nowhere
It picks up another project	The “Current project” line of the journal is wrong	Have the line corrected, with your approval

Your turn

Three short sessions during the week, one of them after at least two days of break:

each session opens with the four steps;
you compare each summary with your journal;
each session closes with a journal page, with a next action.

Check your work

It worked if:

your journal has a page (or a section) per session, each with a concrete next action;
at every pick-up, you compared the summary with the journal, and corrected whatever did not fit;
at least one pick-up took place after two days of break, without re-explaining anything.

Common mistakes:

reopening the old conversation out of habit, several days later;
leaving without writing the day’s page: the next session will know nothing;
a vague next action (“continue the project”): write what you will do first;
picking up in the trial folder instead of mon-espace-ia.

Keep it and pick it up later

The ritual is already written in the kit’s CLAUDE.md (“Start of session”, “End of session”): you just have to say the sentence.
Reread your journal from time to time: it is also the story of what you have learned.

Going further

optional

Module 5 goes deeper into the three layers of continuity: CLAUDE.md, the journal and the project sheets, and Claude Code’s automatic memory.
You can reopen an old session from the sidebar to reread a detail there: your files remain the reliable base.

New words

4 words explained

Word	What it means
Session	A conversation in the Code tab, with its own history and folder, independent of the others
Session ritual	The same steps at the start and at the end of every session, to always pick up in the right place
Pick-up	The moment when a new session finds the thread again, by reading your files
Next action	The first concrete thing to do at the following session

Picking up through a new session was actually played with Claude Code in a copy of the kit (test report, T30). To be checked: the new-session shortcut and the sidebar in the app (screenshot to be taken).