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@yigitkonur/cli-continues

CLI session handoff for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor

`continues` scans local session data from supported AI coding tools, extracts the useful context, and rewrites it for the next tool you want to use. It supports interactive pickup, quick resume by tool, cross-tool handoff, inspection, and bulk export.

1,499 stars37 forksTypeScriptUpdated 4mo ago
Who it's for

Builders who move between AI coding tools and want one session to continue in another.

What it delivers

You can keep debugging or refactoring in a different agent without re-explaining the work.

What it does

Cross-tool session handoff

Transfers a session from one supported tool to another, including conversation history, file changes, commands, and notes.

Interactive session picker

Shows recent sessions across tools and lets you choose where to continue.

Quick resume by tool

Lets you resume the latest or Nth recent session from a specific tool with a single command.

Readable handoff document

Builds a structured context file that tells the next agent what happened, what changed, and what is left to do.

Session inspection and export

Can inspect parsed data, write markdown handoffs, and dump sessions to markdown or JSON for backup or analysis.

Per-project config

Supports `.continues.yml` for preset, verbosity, and sampling defaults.

Multiple tool parsers

Reads native session formats from Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Copilot, Gemini CLI, and other supported tools.

How to get it

  1. 1No install needed — just run npx continues. Or install globally
    npm install -g continues    # gives you `continues` and `cont`
  2. 2Skip the picker entirely — resume the Nth most recent session from a tool
    continues claude        # latest Claude session
    continues codex 3       # 3rd most recent Codex
    continues amp           # latest Amp
    continues cline         # latest Cline
    continues kiro          # latest Kiro
    continues crush         # latest Crush
    continues kimi          # latest Kimi
    continues qwen-code     # latest Qwen Code
  3. 3This is the main thing. Start in one tool, finish in another
    # Hit the Claude rate limit? Hand it off to Gemini:
    continues resume abc123 --in gemini
    
    # Or pass flags through to the destination tool:
    continues resume abc123 --in codex --yolo --search --add-dir /tmp
    
    # Or print the exact handoff prompt without launching the target tool:
    continues resume abc123 --in codex --debug-prompt
  4. 4Run
    continues list                          # table output
    continues list --source claude --json   # JSON, filtered
    continues list --jsonl -n 10            # JSONL, last 10
    continues scan                          # discovery stats
    continues scan --rebuild                # force re-index
  5. 5See exactly what gets parsed and what ends up in the handoff
    continues inspect abc123                              # diagnostic view
    continues inspect abc123 --preset full --write-md handoff.md   # dump full markdown
    continues inspect abc123 --truncate 50                # compact one-liner view

README

continues

You hit the rate limit mid-debug. 30 messages of context — file changes, architecture decisions, half-finished refactors — and now you either wait hours or start fresh in another tool. continues grabs your session from whichever AI coding tool you were using and hands it off to another one. Conversation history, file changes, working state — all of it comes along.

npx continues

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/6945f3a5-bd19-45ab-9702-6df8e165a734

npm version License: MIT

Supported tools

16 AI coding agents, any-to-any handoff:

Claude Code · Codex · GitHub Copilot CLI · Gemini CLI · Cursor · Amp · Cline · Roo Code · Kilo Code · Kiro · Crush · OpenCode · Factory Droid · Antigravity · Kimi CLI · Qwen Code

That's 240 cross-tool handoff paths. Pick any source, pick any destination — it works.

Install

No install needed — just run npx continues. Or install globally:

npm install -g continues    # gives you `continues` and `cont`

How it works

  1. Discovery — scans session directories for all 16 tools
  2. Parsing — reads each tool's native format (JSONL, JSON, SQLite, YAML — they're all different)
  3. Extraction — pulls recent messages, file changes, tool activity, AI reasoning
  4. Handoff — generates a structured context doc and injects it into the target tool

The handoff document is designed so the receiving agent immediately understands what you were doing, what files were touched, what commands ran, and what's left to do.

Usage

Interactive (default)

Just run continues. It finds all your sessions, lets you pick one, and asks where to continue:

┌  continues — pick up where you left off
│
│  Found 1842 sessions across 16 CLI tools
│    claude: 723  codex: 72  cursor: 68  copilot: 39  ...
│
◆  Select a session
│  [claude]   2026-02-19 05:28  my-project    Debugging SSH tunnel config   84a36c5d
│  [copilot]  2026-02-19 04:41  my-project    Migrate presets from Electron c2f5974c
│  [codex]    2026-02-18 23:12  my-project    Fix OpenCode SQLite parser    a1e90b3f
│  ...
└

◆  Continue in:
│  ○ Gemini   ○ Codex   ○ Amp   ○ Kiro   ...
└

When you run from a project directory, sessions from that directory are prioritized.

Quick resume

Skip the picker entirely — resume the Nth most recent session from a tool:

continues claude        # latest Claude session
continues codex 3       # 3rd most recent Codex
continues amp           # latest Amp
continues cline         # latest Cline
continues kiro          # latest Kiro
continues crush         # latest Crush
continues kimi          # latest Kimi
continues qwen-code     # latest Qwen Code

Works for all 16 tools. This uses native resume — same tool, full history, no context injection.

Cross-tool handoff

This is the main thing. Start in one tool, finish in another:

# Hit the Claude rate limit? Hand it off to Gemini:
continues resume abc123 --in gemini

# Or pass flags through to the destination tool:
continues resume abc123 --in codex --yolo --search --add-dir /tmp

# Or print the exact handoff prompt without launching the target tool:
continues resume abc123 --in codex --debug-prompt

continues maps common flags (model, sandbox, auto-approve, extra dirs) to the target tool's equivalent. Anything it doesn't recognize gets passed through as-is.

--debug-prompt is for handoff inspection and testing. It writes the handoff file as usual, then prints the exact prompt that would be passed to the target agent and exits without launching it.

Scripting & CI

continues list                          # table output
continues list --source claude --json   # JSON, filtered
continues list --jsonl -n 10            # JSONL, last 10
continues scan                          # discovery stats
continues scan --rebuild                # force re-index

Inspect (for debugging)

See exactly what gets parsed and what ends up in the handoff:

continues inspect abc123                              # diagnostic view
continues inspect abc123 --preset full --write-md handoff.md   # dump full markdown
continues inspect abc123 --truncate 50                # compact one-liner view

Dump (bulk export)

Export all sessions to files for backup, analysis, or archival:

# Export all sessions to markdown (default)
continues dump all ./sessions

# Export specific tool's sessions
continues dump claude ./sessions/claude
continues dump gemini ./sessions/gemini

# Export as JSON instead of markdown
continues dump all ./sessions --json

# Control verbosity with presets
continues dump all ./sessions --preset full

# Limit number of sessions
continues dump all ./sessions --limit 50

File naming: {source}_{id}.md or {source}_{id}.json

Verbosity control

Not every handoff needs to be a novel. Four presets control how much detail goes in:

PresetMessagesTool samplesSubagent detailWhen to use
minimal30NoneQuick context, token-constrained targets
standard105500 charsDefault — good balance
verbose20102000 charsDebugging, complex multi-file tasks
full50AllEverythingComplete session capture
continues resume abc123 --preset full

YAML config

For per-project defaults, drop a .continues.yml in your project root:

preset: verbose
recentMessages: 15
shell:
  maxSamples: 10
  stdoutLines: 20

Resolution order: --config <path>.continues.yml in cwd → ~/.continues/config.ymlstandard preset. See .continues.example.yml for the full reference.

What gets extracted

Every tool stores sessions differently — different formats, different schemas, different paths. Here's what continues reads:

ToolFormatWhere it lives
Claude CodeJSONL~/.claude/projects/
CodexJSONL~/.codex/sessions/
CopilotYAML + JSONL~/.copilot/session-state/
Gemini CLIJSON~/.gemini/tmp/*/chats/
OpenCodeSQLite~/.local/share/opencode/storage/
Factory DroidJSONL + JSON~/.factory/sessions/
CursorJSONL~/.cursor/projects/*/agent-transcripts/
AmpJSON~/.local/share/amp/threads/
KiroJSON~/Library/Application Support/Kiro/workspace-sessions/
CrushSQLite~/.crush/crush.db
ClineJSONVS Code globalStorage/saoudrizwan.claude-dev/tasks/
Roo CodeJSONVS Code globalStorage/rooveterinaryinc.roo-cline/tasks/
Kilo CodeJSONVS Code globalStorage/kilocode.kilo-code/tasks/
AntigravityPB + brain artifacts + optional live RPC~/.gemini/antigravity/
Kimi CLIJSONL + JSON~/.kimi/sessions/
Qwen CodeJSONL~/.qwen/projects/*/chats/

All reads are read-onlycontinues never modifies your session files. Index cached at ~/.continues/sessions.jsonl (5-min TTL, auto-refresh).

Tool activity in handoffs

The handoff document includes a Tool Activity section so the target agent knows what was done, not just what was said:

## Tool Activity
- **Bash** (×47): `$ npm test → exit 0` · `$ git status → exit 0` · `$ npm run build → exit 1`
- **Edit** (×12): `edit src/auth.ts` · `edit src/api/routes.ts` · `edit tests/auth.test.ts`
- **Grep** (×8): `grep "handleLogin" src/` · `grep "JWT_SECRET"` · `grep "middleware"`

## Session Notes
- **Model**: claude-sonnet-4
- **Tokens**: 45,230 in / 12,847 out
- 💭 Need to handle the edge case where token refresh races with logout

This works for all 16 tools — bash commands, file reads/writes/edits, grep/glob, MCP tool calls, thinking blocks, subagent dispatches, token usage, model info. The shared SummaryCollector keeps the format consistent regardless of source.

Every handoff also includes the full file path of the original session, so the receiving tool can trace back to the raw data if needed.

Commands reference

CommandWhat it does
continuesInteractive TUI picker
continues listList sessions (--source, --json, --jsonl, -n)
continues resume <id>Resume by ID (--in <tool>, --preset)
continues inspect <id>Diagnostic view (--truncate, --write-md, --preset)
continues dump <source|all> <dir>Bulk export sessions (--json, --preset, --limit)
continues scanDiscovery stats (--rebuild)
continues rebuildForce-rebuild session index
continues <tool> [n]Quick-resume Nth session from any of the 16 tools

Global flags: --config <path>, --preset <name>, --verbose, --debug

Community contributions

This started as a 7-tool project and grew fast thanks to contributors:

  • Factory Droid support#1, first community parser
  • Cursor AI support#4 by @Evrim267, with smart slug-to-path resolution
  • Single-tool error handling#3 by @barisgirismen, clear error when only one CLI is installed
  • Env var overrides#14 by @yutakobayashidev, respects CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR, CODEX_HOME, GEMINI_CLI_HOME, XDG_DATA_HOME

The latest batch — Amp, Kiro, Crush, Cline, Roo Code, Kilo Code, Antigravity, Kimi CLI, and Qwen Code — was added by reverse-engineering mnemo's Go adapters and adapting the schemas for TypeScript. Along the way we also improved token/cache/model extraction for the existing Claude, Codex, Cursor, and Gemini parsers.

Bugs fixed in this round:

  • Symlink traversal — fs.Dirent.isDirectory() returns false for symlinks; fixed with isSymbolicLink() && statSync() fallback
  • Zero-token display — no longer shows "0 in / 0 out" when a session has no token data
  • Key Decisions count — now respects the verbosity config instead of being hardcoded to 5

Requirements

  • Node.js 22.5+ (uses built-in node:sqlite for OpenCode and Crush)
  • At least one of the 16 supported tools installed

Development

git clone https://github.com/yigitkonur/cli-continues
cd cli-continues
pnpm install

pnpm run dev          # run with tsx, no build needed
pnpm run build        # compile TypeScript
pnpm test             # run tests
pnpm run test:watch   # watch mode

Adding a new tool? Create a parser in src/parsers/, add the tool name to src/types/tool-names.ts, register it in src/parsers/registry.ts. The registry has a compile-time completeness check — if you add a name but forget the parser, it throws at import.

License

MIT © Yigit Konur

Files in the repo

Repository payload21 top-level entries
  • .github
  • .greptile
  • agent-docs
  • docs
  • src
  • test-fixtures
  • .continues.example.yml
  • .gitignore
  • AGENTS.md
  • biome.json
  • CHANGELOG.md
  • CLAUDE.md
  • demo.mp4
  • LICENSE
  • package-lock.json
  • package.json
  • pnpm-lock.yaml
  • README.md
  • REVIEW.md
  • tsconfig.json
  • vitest.config.ts

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