When the first 20 minutes are spent explaining yesterday
Yesterday you fixed a sign-in bug. Today you want to work on payments, but the new AI conversation does not know which files changed, why you chose that approach, or what you actually checked. Pasting the entire old chat can hide the decision inside a long trail of attempts.
What you need is a work handoff rather than a chat summary. Separate facts the next person can verify from things that still need checking.
Leave five short points before you stop
Instead of 'everything is done,' write 'refresh after sign-in checked; another device not checked.' The next step becomes clear. In a new session, ask the AI to read the note and verify that the files still match it.
- Goal: the user problem this task was meant to solve
- Decision: the approach chosen and why an alternative was rejected
- Artifact: changed files or documents and the current version
- Verification: tests actually run and screens you checked yourself
- Next action: one open question and where to look first
Prepare a handoff for the next session. Separate the goal, confirmed decisions, artifact locations, tests actually run, open questions, and one next action. Label assumptions as assumptions, and show me the draft before saving it.
Use the same record across AI tools
In Wellnote, you can save a reviewed handoff as an artifact and find it in a later session. If you use both Codex and Claude Code, give related work the same project name. After retrieving a record, check the current code and deployment state again.