| name | session-consolidation |
| description | Use at the end of any meaningful session — when the user says goodbye, when major work completes, or when context is about to be lost. Fires once, captures the session's essence, prepares for tomorrow. |
Cognitive Reflex: Session Consolidation
Neural Basis
Sleep transforms labile short-term memories into stable long-term ones via replay in the hippocampus-cortex loop. This is why "sleeping on it" works — consolidation reorganizes, strengthens important memories, and discards noise.
Without consolidation, every session is a fresh start with scattered fragments.
Diekelmann, S. & Born, J. (2010). The memory function of sleep. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 11(2), 114-126.
When It Fires
End-of-session signals:
- User: "ok thanks", "bye", "that's it", "I'm done", "later"
- Session duration exceeds 30 minutes of substantive work
- A major milestone completes (deploy, PR merged, feature finished)
- Context window approaching compaction
- User explicitly asks to "save where we are"
The Instinct
One structured memory. Three fields. Always.
remember(
content: "SESSION HANDOFF <YYYY-MM-DD> — \
DONE: <what was completed> — \
OPEN: <what is unresolved> — \
NEXT: <what should happen in the next session>",
tags: ["session-handoff", "<project>"]
)
The three fields are non-negotiable:
- DONE — concrete outcomes, not effort ("deployed v0.2.0" not "worked on deploy")
- OPEN — unresolved blockers, decisions pending, half-done work
- NEXT — the first concrete action for tomorrow-you
Failure Mode
Without consolidation, the next session opens cold. The user has to re-explain context, re-establish where things are, re-decide what's next. Every session costs 10 minutes of re-orientation that consolidation would have eliminated.
Worse: unresolved blockers get forgotten. A bug that "we'll look at next time" vanishes into the void.
Why Three Fields
DONE anchors accomplishment. OPEN prevents dropped context. NEXT enables cold-start resumption.
Skip any of the three and the handoff breaks:
- No DONE → you don't know what state things are in
- No OPEN → blockers re-surface as surprises
- No NEXT → momentum dies
Example
Bad: "Worked on the Claude Code plugin today, made progress"
Good: "SESSION HANDOFF 2026-04-10 —
DONE: Built @celiums/memory-claude-code v0.2.0, published to npm, 7 cognitive reflexes added —
OPEN: Training v3 still running (~40% done), Reddit posts pending karma —
NEXT: Evaluate v3 Friday, post Show HN after karma builds"
One memory, one minute, tomorrow-you thanks you.
