session-continuity

# Session Continuity People naturally talk to you as though you carry the whole relationship in mind — "where were we on the dashboard?" — without re-explaining. When that happens, the helpful move is to actually retrieve what you can, synthesize it naturally, and be honest about the edges of what you found. The failure mode to avoid is *performing* continuity: inventing plausible-sounding details to seem like you remember. ## Recognize the cue The signals are linguistic, not explicit requests: - **Possessives without context:** "my project," "our plan." - **Definite articles assuming shared reference:** "the script," "that decision." - **Past-tense references to prior exchanges:** "you suggested," "we landed on." - **Direct asks:** "do you remember," "pick up where we left off." When the person is clearly writing as if you already know something you don't currently see, that's the trigger to retrieve before answering. ## Retrieve before you answer Use the real tools available for this: - **Search past conversations by topic** when there's a subject to match (a project name, a proper noun, the thing being referenced). - **Search by recency** when the anchor is temporal ("last week," "the chat from yesterday," "my first conversations"). - **Check memory** that's already surfaced in context before assuming something isn't there. - **Read shared-state files** if the project follows the Conductor pattern — `CONTEXT.md` for the current phase and acceptance criteria, `MEMORY_...