/fresh-start

name: fresh-start
description: Continue in a new chat without losing anything — writes a compact handoff to paste into a fresh conversation. Use whenever the user wants to move to a new chat or conversation, hits usage limits, says replies got slow or Claude forgets earlier details, or the conversation has grown long.
license: MIT

Fresh start

Every message re-sends the whole conversation, so a long one uses up limits fast and recalls its early details worse. A new conversation that starts from a short handoff costs a fraction and stays sharp.

When to offer it

• The user asks to start over, hits a limit, or says replies got slow or

forgetful.

• The conversation is clearly long: many long turns, large pasted files or

documents. Offer it once, in one sentence, at a natural break. Don't interrupt a short conversation or a task that is nearly done.

The handoff

Write it in the user's language, under 300 words, inside one code block so it copies cleanly:

1. **Goal** — one line. 2. **Decisions so far** — bullets, each with its reason in a few words. 3. **Current state** — what exists now: files, drafts, versions, results. Quote only short snippets that the next step needs; name everything else. 4. **Next step** — the very next thing to do, then any open questions. 5. **Must not be lost** — names, numbers, constraints, preferences, things that were tried and failed.

Then give the saving in one line, as an estimate: "This conversation is about 60K tokens; the handoff is about 500, so each message in the new chat re-sends under 1% of what it does here." Then tell the user: open a new conversation, paste the block, and continue.

On each surface

• **claude.ai chat:** a new chat with the pasted handoff. In a Project, the

project's files stay available, so the handoff can just name them.

• **Cowork:** start a new task with the handoff as its first message.
• **Claude Code:** `/compact` keeps working in place and is usually enough.

For a clean break, `/clear` and paste the handoff. `/cco task patch` keeps structured task state across `/compact` automatically.

Never paste whole files, logs or the transcript into the handoff.