orient-session

Recall-Driven Session Start

Load prior session context on a topic before opening a new session. This skill prevents re-doing work by surfacing what prior sessions covered, then starting grounded in that context. Use this when resuming — not for cold-start sessions (use ztl:session for that).

Iron Laws

Present prior context summary before opening any session. Never call session_start without first showing the user what prior sessions found. The checkpoint in step 5 is not optional.

Check result.success after every MCP call. If recall_topic fails, stop and report the error — do not start a session on incomplete recall.

Workflow

1. Read ztlctl://sessions/recent — load the last 5 sessions. Scan topics and timestamps for relevance to the user's stated subject.

2. recall_topic(query="<topic>") — search session log entries for sessions matching the topic. Returns matching sessions with note IDs, timestamps, and relevance scores.

3. For the top relevant sessions: extract note_ids; call get_document(content_id="<id>") on the highest-scored and most recently modified notes to rebuild context. Parallel fetches are acceptable.

4. Summarize prior context: "Found N prior sessions on '<topic>'. Key notes: [titles]. Last worked on: [date]. Main findings: [summary of note bodies from step 3]."

5. Present summary and ask user to confirm continuation. Do not open the session until the user confirms. Ask: "Continue from this context, or start fresh?" Stop here until the user responds.

6. session_start(topic="<topic> — continued") — open a new session grounded in prior context. The " — continued" suffix creates a session lineage that recall_topic can trace in future runs. Check result.success. Report: session ID, prior session count, key note IDs loaded.

Path detection

This skill is for RESUMING prior work on a recurring topic. If the user is starting work on a topic for the first time (no prior sessions), use ztl:session instead — orient-session adds recall overhead with no benefit on a fresh topic.

If recall_topic returns no matching sessions, report: "No prior sessions found on '<topic>'. Suggest using ztl:session for a clean start."

See references/recall-workflow.md for sessions/recent resource format, recall_topic output, and continuation pattern details.