Working with sessions

Claude Code saves your conversation locally as you work — every message, tool use, and result is written to a plaintext JSONL file under ~/.claude/projects/. Before making code changes, it also snapshots the affected files so you can revert.

Sessions are independent. Each new session starts with a fresh context window. Learnings persist across sessions only through auto memory and CLAUDE.md.

Resume vs. fork, redrawn in brand colors.

Resuming with claude --continue or claude --resume reopens a session under the same ID and appends new messages. Forking with --fork-session or /branch copies the history into a new session ID, leaving the original unchanged.

Sessions are tied to your current directory. To run parallel sessions safely, use git worktrees — separate directories for individual branches so changes don't collide.

Practice

• Reopen an earlier session — /resume
• Start fresh without losing the transcript — /clear

Commands used in this lesson: /resume, /clear, /export

Check your understanding

Question 1What is the difference between resuming and forking a session?

AThey are identicalBResume appends to the same session ID; fork copies history into a new IDCFork deletes the originalDResume starts fresh

Question 2Where are session transcripts stored?

AIn your repoBIn the cloud onlyCAs JSONL files under ~/.claude/projects/DIn .claude/settings.json

Question 3How do you run parallel Claude sessions on different branches safely?

AOpen two terminals in the same folderBUse git worktreesCUse /branchDYou can't

Further reading

• Manage sessions
• Worktrees