Session Open — what to do when you sit down

One page. Read top to bottom. Same every time.
Last updated: 2026-04-27

When you start a new session

1. Open new terminal.
2. cd "C:\Users\ztrei\OneDrive\2. Hook Street\05. 2026 BH"
3. claude
4. Wait for Claude's first sentence. It should say:

   "Before we talk — I'll scan your open Gmail drafts first. That's where your phone/car/chat handoffs land. OK to proceed?"

If that sentence doesn't appear, something's off — paste this back to Claude:

Run the SESSION-OPEN RITUAL from CLAUDE.md.

What you should expect — the 4 beats

Claude does this for you, no input required from you between beats.

BEAT 1 — Offer. That's the first sentence above. You answer "yes" or "go" or just describe what you need.

BEAT 2 — Ingest (silent, parallel). Claude reads:
- Your Gmail drafts (handoffs from phone/car/chat)
- docs/CONTEXT.md (full state of every system)
- git status and recent commits
- Today's date + time

BEAT 3 — Acknowledge. Claude says, near-verbatim:
1. "I got that. I looked at that." + lists drafts ingested with date + content
2. "Now I know where we were up to." + top 3 open loops with bumpers
3. "This is what you should be deleting." + drafts safe to delete

BEAT 4 — Open conversation. "Now — what's up? What are we doing today?"

That's where you take over.

What you say at Beat 4

Pick ONE of these openings. Don't bundle everything.

Mode A — "I have a thing":

"[The thing]"

Just describe it. Claude routes via skills (braindump-router, str-ops, obligations, MIS, eden-gardens) automatically.

Mode B — "I want to close a loop":

"Close [item from CONTEXT.md open loops]"

Claude opens that file, finds the loop, walks the next step.

Mode C — "I want to build something":

"Pick up [project] from where we left off"

Claude opens the relevant docs/ doc + relevant repo + walks plan.

Mode D — "I'm tired and need to think out loud":

"Brain dump mode"

Claude shuts up, lets you talk. No advice unless asked. At the end, summarizes + routes.

What NOT to do at Beat 4

• ❌ Don't list 7 things you might do. Pick one.
• ❌ Don't ask "what should I do today?" — that's what docs/CONTEXT.md open loops are for. Read them yourself first.
• ❌ Don't give Claude a giant context dump unless you want it parsed (use Mode D).
• ❌ Don't ignore the ritual outputs. If Beat 3 surfaced an urgent draft, deal with it before Mode A.

Closing a session

Before you walk away from the keyboard, say:

"Close up the session."

Claude does:
1. Save final HTML briefing to outputs/
2. Save Gmail draft of same briefing to your inbox
3. Update docs/CONTEXT.md with session log entry
4. Commit + push affected repos
5. Tell you tomorrow's first action in 1 sentence

Then walk away. The Gmail draft is your read-on-phone-from-bed version.

When to start a new session vs continue

New terminal / new session when:
- It's a new day
- The current session has been open >3 hours
- You context-switched to a totally different domain (BOS → MIS → Eden = new sessions)
- Claude is repeating itself or losing thread

Continue current session when:
- You stepped away for <30 min
- You're mid-execution on a single task
- There's uncommitted work in progress

When in doubt

Just paste this:

"Read docs/SESSION_OPEN.md and reset."

Claude will re-anchor.