save-session

What it does

save-session is a Claude Code skill that runs at the end of a working session. It asks the agent to review everything that happened, decide what is genuinely worth keeping, and persist it to the correct .claude file — CLAUDE.md for universal rules, a skill for specialized workflows, an agent for a reusable assistant, a hook for must-always-run automation.

The point is beating context amnesia. A session often surfaces a non-obvious command, a gotcha, or a convention — knowledge that evaporates when the window closes unless something writes it down. This skill makes that write-down a deliberate, structured step, so the next session starts smarter instead of relearning the same lesson.

When to use it

Invoke it when you’re wrapping up:

• After a session where you discovered a convention, a gotcha, or a non-obvious workflow.
• Before ending a long working session, as a “commit what we learned” ritual.
• Whenever you catch yourself thinking “I’ll want to remember this next time.”

It pairs naturally with a standards skill: save-session decides what to keep, and claude-folder-standards decides where and how much — so the config grows without bloating.

How it works

The skill is just a Markdown file — a short frontmatter block (its name and a description that tells the agent when to invoke it) followed by plain-English instructions. There’s no code to run; Claude reviews the session and writes to the appropriate files using its normal tools.

A few ideas in here that generalize to any “persist knowledge” skill:

• Route by longevity, not by topic. A decision table sends universal rules to CLAUDE.md, specialized knowledge to a skill, and deterministic automation to a hook — so each learning lands where it’ll actually be useful.
• Make “nothing useful” a valid outcome. The skill explicitly allows the agent to do nothing and say so — which stops it from inventing filler just to feel productive.
• Carry the cost constraints forward. It restates the line cap and the token-per-turn framing so the save step can’t quietly undo the config hygiene.

The skill definition

Here’s the actual SKILL.md, verbatim — copy it, adapt the file paths and the line cap to your own project, and drop it in your project’s skills directory.

---
name: save-session
description: End-of-session routine. Saves learnings to .claude files following folder standards.
---

# End-of-Session Save

Review everything from this session and persist what's useful for future sessions.

## What to Save

- Conventions or patterns discovered during this session
- Commands, workflows, or setup steps that were non-obvious
- Gotchas or mistakes encountered (and how to avoid them)
- Reusable domain knowledge or specialized workflows

## Where to Save (follow these rules strictly)

| Content type | Destination |
|---|---|
| Universal, prevents-mistakes-every-session rules | CLAUDE.md (append or update) |
| Specialized workflow or domain knowledge | A new or existing skill in `.claude/skills/` |
| Reusable isolated assistant with scoped tools | `.claude/agents/` |
| Deterministic automation (must always run) | `.claude/hooks/` + settings.json |
| Nothing useful learned | Do nothing. Say so. |

## Constraints (from claude-folder-standards)

- CLAUDE.md must stay under 200 lines total. Count before and after.
- Only add what Claude would get WRONG without. No obvious/inferrable content.
- No duplicating README, package.json, tsconfig, or other existing files.
- No self-evident advice. No "just in case" entries.
- Prefer skills over bloating CLAUDE.md. If it's specialized, make it a skill.
- Skills: 50-80 lines ideal, 120 max. Kebab-case folder name. Include frontmatter.
- Use terse imperative bullets, not prose paragraphs.
- Every line costs ~2-4 tokens per turn — treat CLAUDE.md like expensive real estate.

## Do NOT

- Write to MEMORY.md
- Add content that's already captured elsewhere in .claude files
- Add content with no clear future value
- Exceed the 200-line CLAUDE.md cap