RECALL INCORPORATED

Memory Preservation Services for Claude Code Sessions

Quaid: "Where am I?"

Johnnycab: "You're in a Johnnycab."

Quaid: "I mean, what am I doing here?"

Johnnycab: "I'm sorry. Would you please rephrase the question?"

Ever feel like Douglas Quaid after hitting Context left until auto-compact: 0%? Returning to a Claude Code session nearly devoid of context, with no idea who you are or what you've been doing? The final insult is delivered by Claude helpfully informing you that "You're in a Claude session", just like Johnnycab?

Welcome to Recall Inc. - Your trusted provider of professional memory preservation services. When you need to maintain context across Claude Code sessions, we're here to ensure nothing gets lost in the transition.

Reality Check

Step 1: Recognize the Early Warning Signs

• Do you have too many tools loaded?
• Is your context window getting low?
• Have you deviated far your original plans?

If this sounds like you, Recall has the solution.

"Let me suggest you take a vacation, from yourself"

You need to consider your context window utilization when:

• Claude Code conversations are getting too long (approaching token limits)
• You've been switching between multiple complex tasks over a long session
• You're about to resort to a preemptive /compact but can't afford to lose state

Step 2: Activate Recall Services

# Invoke the total-recall skill
/total-recall

Claude will create a comprehensive memory dump at /tmp/total-recall containing:

• Your current work state
• All key decisions made during the session
• File paths and artifacts created
• Next steps and action items
• Important technical notes

Step 3: Free Your Mind

# Clear your session
/reset

Your conversation history is cleared, but your critical context is safe in /tmp/total-recall.

Step 4: Restore Your Memory

User: read /tmp/total-recall to resume

Claude: I'm now up to speed on your AWS account inventory project.
        You were working on the SQLite schema migration.
        Which task would you like to continue with?

Total Preservation (Almost) Guaranteed or Your Money Back

The total-recall skill captures:

1. Current State - What you're working on
2. Key Decisions Made - Important choices and rationale
3. Data/Inventory Summary - Project-specific information
4. Generated Files/Artifacts - Paths to created files
5. Next Steps - Clear action items (with ✅ completion status)
6. Important Notes - Constraints and technical details

Need to clear out bad context?

Sometimes you just need to rip out the bad memories and start fresh with /reset.

Installation & Setup

Clone the repository and create symlinks:

CLONE_DIR="wherever-you-like"
git clone https://github.com/plinde/total-recall ${CLONE_DIR}
ln -s ${CLONE_DIR} ~/.claude/skills/total-recall
ln -s ${CLONE_DIR}/COMMAND.md ~/.claude/commands/total-recall.md

That's it! Now you can use:

User: /total-recall

This invokes the total-recall skill and saves to /tmp/total-recall.

Optional: Automatic Context Preservation

For automatic preservation before context compaction, add a PreCompact hook to ~/.claude/settings.json:

{
  "hooks": {
    "PreCompact": [
      {
        "hooks": [
          {
            "type": "prompt",
            "prompt": "Context compaction is about to occur. Use the total-recall skill to preserve the current session context before compaction. This is critical - invoke /total-recall now to save session state."
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

This automatically triggers total-recall right before Claude compacts your context, ensuring nothing is lost during compaction.

See hooks-example.json for a complete example.

The Missing PostCompact Hook

Claude Code currently lacks a native PostCompact hook to automatically restore context after compaction completes. While PreCompact preserves your memory before compaction, you still need to manually read /tmp/total-recall to restore context afterward.

The community has requested a PostCompact hook to complete the automatic preservation/restoration cycle. Some workarounds exist (like using PreUserPromptSubmit hooks to detect post-compact state), but these come with their own drawbacks:

• Detection uncertainty - Hooks may trigger on normal prompts, not just post-compact scenarios
• Timing issues - The hook runs before Claude processes the prompt, potentially interrupting user flow
• False positives - May attempt restoration when compaction didn't actually occur

Until a native PostCompact hook is available, manual restoration remains the most reliable approach:

User: read /tmp/total-recall to resume

This ensures you control exactly when context restoration happens, avoiding unwanted interruptions or false triggers.

License

MIT License - See LICENSE

Acknowledgments

• The total-recall skill - The real hero
• Paul Verhoeven - For the greatest sci-fi action film ever made (1990)
• Arnold Schwarzenegger - For the memorable one-liners
• Philip K. Dick - Original author of "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"

"Get your ass to Mars" - Hauser