tp-session-restore

name	tp-session-restore
description	Restore session context from handoff.md in the design's directory at the start of a new conversation. Gives you continuity without re-explaining.
argument-hint	[design-name]

Session Restore

Pick up where the last session left off by loading the handoff and design artifacts.

Argument: {design-name} (optional) — must match an existing directory under three-pillars-docs/tp-designs/ (active) — or, if already completed, under three-pillars-docs/completed-tp-designs/.

If no argument is given, read the first line of .claude/last-design (project root) for the most recently active design name. This file is an MRU stack — one design per line, most recent first. If the file doesn't exist or is empty, list available designs under three-pillars-docs/tp-designs/ and ask the user which one to restore.

Orchestration fallback (no argument only). Top-level fleet / cross-design sessions save their handoff under the reserved orchestration slot (three-pillars-docs/tp-designs/orchestration/, see its README.md), not under any one design. So when the name came from the MRU — no explicit argument — and the resolved design has no handoff.md of its own (e.g. it is seed-only, or its real handoff lives on a worktree branch), but orchestration/handoff.md exists, restore orchestration instead. An explicit {design-name} argument always wins: never override it with the fallback.

Steps

0. Run first-run preflight per skills/_shared/first-run.md.

1. Resolve the design name: Use the argument if given, otherwise read the first line of .claude/last-design. If neither is available, list designs and ask.

2. Resolve the design directory, in order: first three-pillars-docs/tp-designs/{design-name}/ (active). If that's absent, fall back to three-pillars-docs/completed-tp-designs/{design-name}/ (completed) — mirroring /tp-guide, which already scans both dirs. This completed-dir lookup fires for both an explicit {design-name} argument and an MRU-resolved name (contrast the orchestration fallback in step 3, which is MRU-only).

3. Read handoff.md from the design directory.

   • If the design resolved from completed-tp-designs/{design-name}/ in step 2, frame it as COMPLETED. Completed status is signaled by the resolution source — the dir resolved under completed-tp-designs/ — keyed off design.md's ever-present completed: YYYY-MM-DD frontmatter stamp (written at /tp-design-complete step 6d). Read the completed: date and the surviving artifacts (design.md, plan.md, review.md, etc.) regardless of whether a handoff exists:
     • If handoff.md is present, it may carry the dual archive banner (archived: true frontmatter / the 📦 Archived handoff blockquote, added at /tp-design-complete step 6d1). Treat the banner as enrichment — extra session-prose context surfaced when present — never as the signal that the design is completed; the resolution source + completed: stamp already established that.
     • If handoff.md is missing (the dominant case for legacy archived designs, which deleted the handoff under the old pre-banner behavior), there's nothing to enrich with — still frame the design as completed via its completed: stamp and surviving artifacts. Never print "no prior session to restore" for a completed design, with or without a handoff.
     • If the design is still MRU-top or its lock.json phase == "cleanup-pending", nudge the user toward /tp-post-merge {design-name} to finish teardown once the completion PR has merged.
     • Continue to step 4 against the completed directory.
   • If it resolved from the active tp-designs/{design-name}/ dir and handoff.md exists, continue to step 4.
   • If it's missing from the active dir and the name came from the MRU (no explicit argument): check for three-pillars-docs/tp-designs/orchestration/handoff.md. If it exists, the MRU-top design has no session of its own but a cross-design orchestration handoff does — switch the target to orchestration, read that handoff.md, and tell the user you fell back and why (e.g. "audit-council-fanout has only a seed — restoring the orchestration fleet handoff, which references it"). Continue to step 4 against the orchestration directory.
   • Otherwise (missing from the active dir with no orchestration fallback, and the design did not resolve as completed): tell the user there's no prior session to restore. Check whether other artifacts exist (design.md, plan.md, seed.md) and summarize what's available, then stop. This branch is guarded to genuinely-absent designs only — a completed design never reaches it (see the completed branch above).
   • Resolve/report order recap: active tp-designs/ → completed completed-tp-designs/ → the orchestration fallback (which stays MRU-only and fires only when neither active nor completed resolved). An explicit {design-name} argument always wins over the MRU at every step.
   • No double-report note: the completed-design branch above must not double-report with the step-7.5 closeout nudge — detect_unarchived.py (step 7.5) scans only active tp-designs/*/, so a design that resolved from completed-tp-designs/ here is structurally invisible to that scan. Belt-and-suspenders, not a real mitigation, but worth stating so the two surfaces are never confused.

4. Read the sibling artifacts that exist in the design directory (design.md, detailed-design.md, plan.md, review.md) — quick scan for context, not deep-dive. (The orchestration slot has none of these — that's expected; its handoff.md is the whole record, so rely on it and move on.)

5. Read the files mentioned in the handoff's State and Next sections (just a quick scan — don't deep-dive unless something looks wrong).

6. Read Current Focus: If three-pillars-docs/product_roadmap.md exists and has a ## Current Focus table, read it. Use this to contextualize the design's status within the broader project — is it the top priority? Is it blocking other work?

7. Inspect the lock per skills/_shared/collaboration.md. If lock.json exists and its owner or branch does not match the current user / current git branch, surface this in the status update ("Heads up: {name} is locked by {owner} on {branch} — you'll need --force-takeover on the next lock-enforcing skill to claim it"). Do not block — session-restore is read-only. 7.5. Closeout nudge (read-only, fail-open): run python3 "$TP_ROOT"/skills/_shared/detect_unarchived.py --repo . --exclude {design-name} --slugs-only (exclude the design being restored — it's the active work, not drift). Any slugs returned are other designs whose three-pillars-docs/tp-designs/{slug}/ dir carries implementation evidence but has not been archived to completed-tp-designs/ — closeout pending. Mention them in the status (step 8) as "closeout pending — run /tp-design-learn {slug} (or /tp-spike-learn) then /tp-design-complete {slug}"; an unarchived merged design hard-fails the framework's CI check on {default}. Non-blocking, fail-open — the helper always exits 0; a detector error yields no nudge and never breaks the restore. One detector, two surfaces: shared with the hard CI check.

8. Present a brief status to the user:

   • What design they're working on and which phase
   • What artifacts exist (design ✓, detailed ✓, plan ✓, etc.)
   • What's done vs. what's next
   • Where this design sits in the Current Focus table (if present)
   • Lock status (only surface if the user is not the current owner)
   • Any closeout-pending designs from step 7.5 (if any)
   • Any open questions from last time

9. Ask if they want to continue where they left off or pivot to something else.

Rules

• Validate {design-name} per skills/_shared/validate-name.md.
• Inspect but do not enforce the lock per skills/_shared/collaboration.md. Restore is read-only and must not block.
• Keep the status update under 15 lines. The user already wrote the handoff — don't parrot it back verbatim, synthesize it.
• If the handoff references files that no longer exist or state that looks stale, flag it.
• Don't start doing work until the user confirms direction.