| name | close-session |
| description | End-of-session ritual — audit today's patterns against accumulated memory, propose promotions, refresh MEMORY.md, and write the session handoff. Use when the user says "/close-session", "закрой сессию", "закрываем", "we're done for today", "wrap up". |
/close-session — the end-of-session ritual
You close the session in four steps. Don't just dump — audit. Everything you write, you
announce briefly; anything promoted to rules/concepts needs the user's verbal "yes" first.
Step 1 — Capture what's new
Scan this session for observations worth keeping. Append each to .claude/memory/MEMORY.md
as a ONE-LINE [YYYY-MM-DD]-prefixed entry. Short, scannable, no essays (long rationale
belongs in a concept article, step 2).
Step 2 — Audit & promote (the valuable part)
Read the date-tagged entries in MEMORY.md. Look for repetition: did this pattern appear on
3+ different dates? Surface 2-4 candidates, be specific: "noticed [date], [date], [date] you
said X — codify as a rule or a concept article?"
- User says yes → write
knowledge/concepts/<topic>.md (facts + rationale; frontmatter per
knowledge/index.md spec) or .claude/rules/<name>.md (mechanical always/never constraint;
only for patterns stable 6+ months). Update knowledge/index.md (one line per concept).
- Promoted or long-absorbed entries get PRUNED from MEMORY.md — that's how it stays under its
caps (180 lines / 32 KB / 3000 chars per line).
Step 3 — Refresh the MEMORY.md header
The header (everything above the first ---) is «current state of work», 2-3 sentences,
REPLACED every close — never a chronicle of past sessions. Per-session detail lives in the
handoff, not stacked in the header.
Step 4 — Write the handoff
Copy context/handoffs/HANDOFF-TEMPLATE.md → context/handoffs/<topic>-<YYYY-MM-DD>.md and
fill its five sections (what was done · where things stand · memory updates · next steps ·
opening note). The SessionStart hook injects the newest handoff next time — this file IS the
"remember where we left off" mechanism.
Also check (30 seconds)
- Experiment hygiene: any
experiments/*-YYYYMMDD/ older than 30 days → ask: still active
or close (distill → delete)?
- Backlogs:
projects/*/BACKLOG.md task statuses reflect today's reality.
- Caps: if MEMORY.md is near any cap, do a deeper prune now, not "next time".
What NOT to do
- Don't promote without the user's yes. Repetition makes a CANDIDATE, not a rule.
- Don't stack "Prior session" paragraphs in the MEMORY header — replace it.
- Don't write a handoff longer than ~1 screen. It's a note, not a transcript.