resume

name

resume

description

Pick up unfinished work cold in a fresh session by re-deriving state from live git, gh, the plan file, and TaskList — never from remembered or pasted claims. Use at the start of a new session that continues prior work, or when handed a resume prompt. Verifies what is actually merged, open, committed, and checked-off right now, reconciles it against the plan, then states exactly where things stand and what the next action is before touching anything.

Resume

Continue unfinished work in a session that has no memory of how it got here. The core rule: trust live state, never prose. A resume prompt, a plan file, or a prior summary describes what was true. Before acting, verify what is true.

This exists because "Continue from where you left off" was typed ~53 times and "fresh creds / fresh session" ~43 — the recurring need to resume cold without redoing merged work or trusting a stale claim.

State warning: everything below drifts. A PR called "open" in the prompt may be merged; a plan item marked [ ] may be done. Re-derive all of it now.

Step 1: Locate the work

• Read the plan file. The resume prompt should name it (~/.claude/plans/<slug>.md); if not, find the most recent under ~/.claude/plans/.
• TaskList — the pending/in-progress items.
• The worktree(s) the work lives in (the prompt's cd block, or git worktree list).

Step 2: Re-derive live state (never trust the prompt's claims)

For every claim the prompt or plan makes, run the check that confirms it:

• "PR #N is open" → gh pr view <N> --json state,mergedAt — it may be merged or closed.
• "branch X exists / is pushed" → git branch, git status -sb, git log origin/<branch>.
• "file Y still needs Z" → read file Y; the change may already be there.
• "item is done / not done" → the plan checkbox is a claim, not proof. Confirm against the repo (merged PR, committed file, passing test).
• Merged vs local: git log origin/main..HEAD and gh pr list --state merged — work you think is pending may already be on main.

Reconcile: build the actual remaining set = plan/TaskList items minus anything live state shows already done. Shrinking the list is the point — never redo merged work.

Step 3: State where things stand, then continue

Before editing anything, print a short reconciliation so the user can confirm:

Resumed: <objective, one line>
  Already done (verified live):  <items live state proved complete>
  Actually remaining:            <the reconciled open set>
  Next action:                   <the single next step>
  Working dir:                   <worktree path>

Then do the next action. Do not start by redoing something a merged PR already shipped. If live state contradicts the plan (a "pending" item is done, a "done" item regressed), say so explicitly — the contradiction is a finding, not noise.

When the plan itself looks stale

If re-derivation shows the plan is broadly out of date (many items done, the approach superseded), stop and invoke /replan instead of resuming against a plan that no longer matches reality.

Related Skills

• replan (git-workflows) — re-derive the whole plan from live state when the plan file no longer matches reality.
• session-status (git-workflows) — the live-state derivation this skill reuses.
• handoff (git-workflows) — the artifact a resume prompt is typically built from.