Session restore

A SessionStart hook that injects the agent's persistent memory into every new session, so it wakes up with context instead of a blank slate. (The same hook also drives cron re-registration — that half is documented in the cron-self-revival skill; this skill covers the memory-injection half.)

What it guarantees

Every fresh session begins with the memory index (memory/MEMORY.md) and the tail of today's daily log injected into context. The agent does not start each session having forgotten who its owner is or what happened today. A clear source is respected — if the user intentionally wiped context, nothing is re-injected.

How it works

On SessionStart the hook reads the source field (startup / resume / compact / clear). For every source except clear it builds an additionalContext block from memory/MEMORY.md and the last ~40 lines of memory/daily/YYYY-MM-DD.md, and returns it as {"hookSpecificOutput":{"hookEventName":"SessionStart","additionalContext":...}}. Claude Code injects that string into the session context.

Implement in your project

Reference implementation: ../../scripts/hooks/session-start-restore.py

Wire it on SessionStart (see ../../.claude/settings.json):

"SessionStart": [
  {
    "matcher": "",
    "hooks": [
      { "type": "command", "command": "EVI_PROJECT_DIR=$CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR EVI_TMUX_BIN=$EVI_TMUX_BIN EVI_TMUX_TARGET=$EVI_TMUX_TARGET EVI_SELF_POKE_DELAY=$EVI_SELF_POKE_DELAY python3 $CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR/scripts/hooks/session-start-restore.py" }
    ]
  }
]

You need memory/MEMORY.md to exist (it can start as a short index) and the daily log convention from the daily-diary skill.

Adaptation points

• Different memory layout: change the two file paths the hook reads. The contract is just "produce an additionalContext string"; what you put in it is yours.
• Inject more/less: tune DAILY_TAIL_LINES, or add a third source (e.g. an open-tasks file). Keep it small — injected context costs tokens every session.
• Memory-only (no scheduler): if you do not want the cron self-poke, set EVI_TMUX_* to empty / ignore them; the memory injection works standalone. The poke only fires on startup when a cron registry exists.

Unconfigured = silent no-op. The cron-reregistration block and the tmux self-poke only run when a .env exists in the project dir, so an unconfigured clone injects no schedule and pokes nothing. Memory injection is independent — it is simply empty until you have a MEMORY.md / daily log.

Verify

1. python3 -m py_compile scripts/hooks/session-start-restore.py exits 0.
2. echo '{"source":"startup"}' | EVI_PROJECT_DIR=$PWD python3 scripts/hooks/session-start-restore.py prints JSON containing additionalContext (given a non-empty MEMORY.md).
3. echo '{"source":"clear"}' | python3 scripts/hooks/session-start-restore.py prints nothing (clear is respected).

Rollback

Remove the SessionStart entry from .claude/settings.json.