/mpm-session-pause

Pause the current session and save all work state for later resume.

What This Does

When invoked, this skill:

1. Captures current work state (todos, git status, context summary)
2. Creates session files at .claude-mpm/sessions/session-{timestamp}.* (project-local)
3. Updates .claude-mpm/sessions/LATEST-SESSION.txt pointer
4. Prunes stale git worktrees under <repo>/.claude/worktrees/ (see below)
5. Shows the session file path for later resume

Usage

/mpm-session-pause [optional message describing current work]

Examples:

/mpm-session-pause
/mpm-session-pause Working on authentication refactor, about to test login flow
/mpm-session-pause Need to context switch to urgent bug fix

Worktree Pruning (issues #892, #894)

At pause time, MPM automatically prunes stale agent worktrees and orphaned directories under <repo>/.claude/worktrees/.

Registered-worktree pruning (#892)

Safety classification — a registered worktree is PRESERVED if ANY of the following is true:

• It has uncommitted changes (staged or unstaged).
• It has untracked files.
• Its branch has commits not yet merged into the main branch (or not pushed to

its upstream remote).

• It is marked as locked by git.
• Any git command fails (fail-safe: when in doubt, PRESERVE).

Only worktrees that are provably clean and fully merged are removed via git worktree remove (never --force).

Orphaned-directory sweep (#894)

git worktree list only reports registered worktrees. Directories under .claude/worktrees/ that are no longer registered (e.g. left behind after git worktree remove --force) are invisible to git and accumulate indefinitely. MPM performs a separate filesystem scan to find and remove them.

Safety classification — an orphaned directory is PRESERVED if ANY of the following is true:

• It has uncommitted or untracked changes (git status --porcelain non-empty).
• It has a .git entry but git status fails (ambiguous state → PRESERVE).
• Its branch has commits not merged into the main branch.
• Its merge status cannot be determined (fail-safe: when in doubt, PRESERVE).
• It is a plain (non-git) directory that contains any files or subdirectories

(preserved to avoid deleting unmanaged data). Only empty plain directories are swept.

• The git worktree list command fails entirely (sweep is skipped and the

summary records orphansweepskipped to explain why).

A strict path-containment guard ensures deletion can never escape .claude/worktrees/ — symlinks that resolve outside the directory are rejected and preserved.

Output — after the session files are written, the pause command prints a concise cleanup summary, e.g.:

Worktree Cleanup:
  Pruned 2 stale worktree(s)
  Preserved 1 worktree(s) with unsaved work
    /repo/.claude/worktrees/agent-abc: branch has commits not merged into main branch
  Swept 1 orphaned directory
  Preserved 1 orphaned directory with unsaved work
    /repo/.claude/worktrees/leftover-xyz: has uncommitted or untracked changes

Opt-out — pass --no-prune-worktrees to skip all cleanup (both registered pruning and orphan sweep):

claude-mpm session pause --no-prune-worktrees

Implementation

Run the console script directly — no interpreter resolution needed:

# Basic pause (includes worktree pruning)
claude-mpm session pause

# With a descriptive message
claude-mpm session pause -m "End of day — auth refactor in progress"

# Skip worktree pruning
claude-mpm session pause --no-prune-worktrees

# Export a copy to a specific location
claude-mpm session pause --export /tmp/session-backup.json

If the user provided a message after /mpm-session-pause, pass it via -m:

claude-mpm session pause -m "<user message here>"

If claude-mpm session pause fails

If the command exits non-zero, capture the full error and show it verbatim — do not summarise with a generic "not importable" message:

claude-mpm session pause 2>&1
rc=$?
if [ "$rc" -ne 0 ]; then
    echo ""
    echo "ERROR: claude-mpm session pause failed (exit $rc)."
    echo "Full error shown above."
    echo ""
    echo "Diagnostic steps:"
    echo "  1. Verify claude-mpm is on PATH:  command -v claude-mpm"
    echo "  2. Check the actual import error:  python3 -c 'import claude_mpm' 2>&1"
    echo "  3. If a transitive dep fails (e.g. shadowed stdlib module), check"
    echo "     sys.path[0] is not /tmp:  python3 -c 'import sys; print(sys.path[0])'"
fi

Note on misleading ImportError messages (issue #781): A bare
except ImportError can fire for transitive failures (e.g. a stray
/tmp/bisect.py shadowing stdlib bisect) unrelated to claude_mpm
itself. Always inspect the actual exception — e.name tells you
which module failed. If e.name does not start with claude_mpm, the
problem is a shadowed or missing transitive dependency, not a missing
claude_mpm installation.

What Gets Saved

Session State:

• Session ID and timestamp
• Current working directory
• Git branch, recent commits, and file status
• Primary task and current phase
• Context message (if provided)
• TaskList state (pending/in-progress tasks from Claude Code)

Resume Instructions:

• Quick-start commands
• Validation commands
• Files to review

File Formats:

• .md - Human-readable markdown (for reading)
• .json - Machine-readable (for tooling)

Session File Location

All session files are stored in the project-local directory:

<project-root>/.claude-mpm/sessions/
├── LATEST-SESSION.txt          # Pointer to most recent session
├── session-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.md
└── session-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.json

This ensures sessions are scoped to the project that created them — pausing in project A and opening project B will never load project A's session state.

Token Budget

Token usage: ~5-10k tokens to execute (2-5% of context budget)

Benefit: Saves all remaining context for future resume, allowing you to:

• Context switch to urgent tasks
• Take a break and resume later
• Archive current work state before major changes

Resume Later

To resume this session:

/mpm-session-resume

Or from the CLI:

claude-mpm session resume

Or manually:

cat .claude-mpm/sessions/LATEST-SESSION.txt
cat .claude-mpm/sessions/session-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.md

Git Integration

Session files are stored in the project-local .claude-mpm/sessions/ directory. Add this directory to your .gitignore — session state is machine-specific and should not be committed. No git commit is created by the pause operation.

Use Cases

Context switching:

/mpm-session-pause Switching to urgent production bug

End of work session:

/mpm-session-pause Completed API refactor, ready for testing tomorrow

Before major changes:

/mpm-session-pause Saving state before attempting risky refactor

When approaching context limit:

/mpm-session-pause Hit 150k tokens, starting fresh session

Related Commands

• /mpm-session-resume — Resume from most recent paused session
• claude-mpm session resume — CLI entry point for resume
• claude-mpm session pause --help — Full CLI usage

Notes

• Session files are stored project-locally in .claude-mpm/sessions/ (not synced across machines)
• Add .claude-mpm/sessions/ to .gitignore
• No git commit is created — sessions live outside version control
• LATEST-SESSION.txt always points to most recent session in the current project
• Session pause is manual-only; context-usage crossing thresholds (70%+) only prints informational warnings (auto-pause is disabled)