session-start

A command for starting a new coding session by collecting recent handoffs, notes, workstreams, and saved memory. A workstream is a separate line of work within a project.

In plain words
What is it for?
It is for reviewing recent session history, finding active workstreams, selecting a focus, and suggesting session recovery when saved context is missing.
Why use it?
It helps restore useful context quickly instead of beginning each session without knowing what was recently done or what remains.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the memory-toolkit plugin — 11 skills, 5 hooks shipped together

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/ilyagorsky/memory-toolkit/session-start
Any agent
npx skills add IlyaGorsky/memory-toolkit --skill session-start
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/IlyaGorsky/memory-toolkit

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install memory-toolkit, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 11 skills, 5 hooks.

Per session 22 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,481 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00022 $0.01481
Opus 5 $0.00011 $0.00740
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00296
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00148

Measured 3d ago against content hash 1061815749a0, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

session-start scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 3d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

skills/session-start/SKILL.md · 177 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 177 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

/session-start — Cold session start

Quick context entry. Gather state, propose focus.


Step 1: Gather context

Do NOT re-read MEMORY.md — already in system prompt via claudeMd loader.

If a workstream argument is provided — skip to Step 3.

MEM="${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/memory.js"
PROJ_KEY=$(pwd | tr '/.' '-' | sed 's/^-//')
MEM_DIR="$HOME/.claude/projects/-${PROJ_KEY}/memory"

# Latest handoff (global; per-workstream fetched in Step 3)
node "$MEM" --dir="$MEM_DIR" handoff

# Latest dated note
ls -t "$MEM_DIR/notes/"*.md 2>/dev/null | head -1 | xargs -I{} head -30 {}

# Workstreams sorted by aggregate weight
node "$MEM" --dir="$MEM_DIR" workstreams

# Top-3 brief inline
for WS in <top-3 from sorted list>; do
  node "$MEM" --dir="$MEM_DIR" workstream "$WS" --brief | head -15
done

Decision tree — source of focus candidates:

Handoff state Candidates source
≤7 days old, has "What's next" Handoff primary (workstreams table still rendered for context)
>7 days old Workstreams table; handoff shown as stale context
Missing/empty/only SESSION_START markers Workstreams table; say "no usable context", suggest /session-restore
No handoff, no notes Workstreams table only

The workstreams table in Step 1b is always rendered in Step 4 — it's the session's map, not a fallback. The decision tree only controls where focus candidates come from.


Step 1b: Workstreams table (always rendered)

Render as table. Top-3 rows show synthesized "What's in" from --brief; rest show keywords. ➕ row is mandatory.

**Workstreams** (sorted by aggregate weight)

| # | Workstream | Last touched | What's in / Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | <name> | <date> | <synthesized 1-line for top-3> |
| ... | | | <keywords for rest> |
| N | ➕ Create new | | |

If user picks ➕ — ask name + keywords, then:

node "$MEM" --dir="$MEM_DIR" add-workstream <name> <keyword1> <keyword2> ...

Step 2: Git status

Read the full file on GitHub · 177 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 3d ago First seen · 177 lines · 22 tokens per session scan A 1061815749a0

Subscribe to this mod's changes

session-start is a skill published in the GitHub repository IlyaGorsky/memory-toolkit (13 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 22 tokens to every session and 1,481 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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