Memory and sessions

How Claude learns from experience, and how you pick up where you left off

⏱ Est. ~6 min

01 · Read

You write CLAUDE.md to give Claude explicit instructions. But Claude Code also has auto memory — it can save notes about things discovered during a session. Build command quirks, debug patterns, project-specific gotchas.

These notes persist across sessions, so Claude learns from experience. Auto memory lives in ~/.claude/projects/<project>/memory/. Local only, never synced to git.

Key points

CLAUDE.md = rules you write explicitly
Auto memory = notes Claude saves from experience
Memory lives in ~/.claude/projects/<project>/memory/
Local only — not shared via git
Toggle with the /memory command in Claude Code

02 · Read

Each Claude Code conversation is a session. Sessions are stored locally and can be resumed later.

But here's the key insight — sessions start from scratch. If you open a new terminal and run claude, it won't automatically know what you were doing yesterday. You need to explicitly resume the session, or rely on CLAUDE.md and memory for context.

Naming sessions is the single most important habit for productive context management.

Key points

Each conversation is a session, stored locally
New sessions start from scratch — no prior conversation history
Named sessions are easier to find and resume later
CLAUDE.md and memory provide continuity between sessions

03 · Code example

Here are the key commands for managing sessions — name, resume, fork.

Name the current session

/rename "auth-refactor"

Resume the most recent session

claude --continue

Pick from recent sessions

claude --resume

Resume a specific named session

claude --resume auth-refactor

Fork a session (new branch from current state)

claude --continue --fork-session

Name the session as soon as you start work — /rename "feature-name". When you come back to the project, claude --resume shows a picker where you can search, preview, and select. Fork creates a new session from the current state without touching the original.

04 · Step-through

1. Start and name

Open Claude Code and immediately name the session with /rename "what I'm working on". Easier to find later.

2. Do your work

Ask Claude to implement features, fix bugs, write tests. Claude reads CLAUDE.md and memory automatically.

3. Natural ending

When you're done, just close the terminal or press Ctrl+C. The session is saved automatically.

4. Resume later

When you come back, run claude --resume to pick up where you left off, or claude --continue for the most recent session.

05 · Quiz

You were working on a feature yesterday and want to keep going today. What's the fastest way to resume?

Start a new session and re-explain everything
Copy-paste the previous conversation
Run claude --continue to resume the most recent session
Delete CLAUDE.md and start over

06 · Match

Match each command to what it does.

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※ This is an independent Traditional Chinese teaching project — not an official Anthropic product. Claude™ is a trademark of Anthropic, PBC.