1.7 — Session State and Resumption

CCAR-F Domain 1 · Task 1.7

What You Need to Know

A session is one conversation with an agent that you can come back to. Session management determines how an agent keeps continuity across work sessions.

Three Session Management Options

Option	Purpose	When to use
--resume	Continue the same session	Prior context is mostly still valid; files have not changed significantly
fork_session	Create independent branch from shared baseline	Exploring divergent approaches after initial analysis
Fresh start + summary injection	Clean baseline with preserved knowledge	Prior tool results are stale (files changed) or context is degraded

Key Concept: Resume for continuation, fork for divergent exploration, fresh start with summary for stale tool results.

The Stale Context Problem

Occurs when an agent resumes a session after files have been modified. The history still contains old tool results. The model reasons from stale data and gives contradictory advice.

Simply resuming and asking the agent to re-read changed files is incomplete — the stale results remain in history. The correct fix is a fresh session with a structured summary of prior findings, plus targeted re-analysis of only the changed files.

Decision Matrix

Scenario	Best Option
Continuing work, no files changed	--resume
Comparing two approaches	fork_session
Resuming after core files changed	Fresh start + summary
Long session with cluttered history	Fresh start + summary
Dependency updates	Fresh start + summary

Exam Traps

• Suggesting full re-exploration when only a few files changed
• Resuming when most earlier tool results describe files that have since changed
• Using fork_session to continue a single line of investigation
• Using fork_session to handle stale context