Recovery Skill

When to Use

• Context window exhausted mid-workflow
• Session interrupted or lost
• Need to resume from last completed step
• Workflow state needs reconstruction

Step 1: Identify Last Completed Step

1. Check gate files for last successful validation:

   • Location: .claude/context/history/gates/{workflow_id}/
   • Find highest step number with validation_status: "pass"
   • This is the last successfully completed step

2. Review reasoning files for progress:

   • Location: .claude/context/history/reasoning/{workflow_id}/
   • Read reasoning files up to last completed step
   • Extract context and decisions made

3. Identify artifacts created:

   • Check artifact registry: .claude/context/artifacts/registry-{workflow_id}.json
   • List all artifacts created up to last step
   • Verify artifact files exist

Step 2: Load Plan Documents

1. Read plan document (stateless):

   • Load plan-{workflow_id}.json from artifact registry
   • Extract current workflow state
   • Identify completed vs pending tasks

2. Load relevant phase plan (if multi-phase):

   • Check if project is multi-phase (exceeds phase_size_max_lines threshold)
   • Load active phase plan: plan-{workflow_id}-phase-{n}.json
   • Understand phase boundaries and dependencies

3. Understand current state:

   • Map completed tasks to plan
   • Identify next steps
   • Check for dependencies

Step 3: Context Recovery

1. Load artifacts from last completed step:

   • Read artifact registry
   • Load all artifacts with validation_status: "pass"
   • Verify artifact integrity

2. Read reasoning files for context:

   • Load reasoning files from completed steps
   • Extract key decisions and context
   • Understand workflow progression

3. Reconstruct workflow state:

   • Combine plan, artifacts, and reasoning
   • Create recovery state document
   • Validate state consistency

Step 4: Resume Execution

1. Continue from next step:

   • Identify next step after last completed
   • Load step requirements from plan
   • Prepare inputs for next step

2. Planner updates plan status (stateless):

   • Update plan-{workflow_id}.json with current status
   • Mark completed steps
   • Update progress tracking

3. Orchestrator coordinates next agents:

   • Pass recovered artifacts to next step
   • Resume workflow execution
   • Monitor for additional interruptions

</execution_process>

Failure Classification

When a task fails, classify the failure type:

Failure Type	Indicators	Recovery Action
BROKEN_BUILD	Build errors, syntax errors, module not found	ROLLBACK + fix
VERIFICATION_FAILED	Test failures, validation errors, assertion errors	RETRY with fix (max 3 attempts)
CIRCULAR_FIX	Same error 3+ times, similar approaches repeated	SKIP or ESCALATE
CONTEXT_EXHAUSTED	Token limit reached, maximum length exceeded	Compress context, continue
UNKNOWN	No pattern match	RETRY once, then ESCALATE

Circular Fix Detection

Iron Law: If the same approach has been tried 3+ times without success, STOP.

When circular fix is detected:

1. Stop the current approach immediately
2. Document what was tried (approaches, errors, files)
3. Try fundamentally different approach (different library, different pattern, simpler implementation)
4. If still failing, ESCALATE to human intervention

Detection Algorithm:

• Extract keywords from current approach (excluding stop words)
• Compare with keywords from last 3 attempts
• If Jaccard similarity > 30% for 2+ attempts, flag as circular

Example:

Attempt 1: "Using async await for fetch"
Attempt 2: "Using async/await with try-catch"
Attempt 3: "Trying async await pattern again"
=> CIRCULAR FIX DETECTED - Stop and try callback pattern instead

Attempt Count Thresholds

Failure Type	Max Attempts	Then Action
VERIFICATION_FAILED	3	SKIP + ESCALATE
UNKNOWN	2	ESCALATE
BROKEN_BUILD	1	ROLLBACK (if good commit exists)
CIRCULAR_FIX	0	Immediately SKIP

References

See references/ for detailed patterns:

• failure-types.md - Failure classification details and indicators
• recovery-actions.md - Recovery action decision tree and execution
• merge-strategies.md - File merge strategies for multi-agent scenarios

<best_practices>

Recovery Validation Checklist

• Last completed step identified correctly
• Plan document loaded and validated
• All artifacts from completed steps available
• Reasoning files reviewed for context
• Workflow state reconstructed accurately
• No duplicate work will be performed
• Next step inputs prepared
• Recovery logged in reasoning file

</best_practices>

<error_handling>

Error Handling

• Missing plan document: Request planner to recreate plan from requirements
• Missing artifacts: Request artifact recreation from source agent
• Corrupted artifacts: Request artifact recreation with validation
• Incomplete reasoning: Use artifact registry and gate files to reconstruct state

</error_handling>

# 1. Check gate files for last completed step
ls .claude/context/history/gates/{workflow_id}/

# 2. Load plan document
cat .claude/context/artifacts/plan-{workflow_id}.json

# 3. Review reasoning files
cat .claude/context/history/reasoning/{workflow_id}/*.json

# 4. Resume from next step

</usage_example>

<usage_example> Natural language invocation:

"Resume the workflow from where we left off"
"Recover the workflow state and continue"
"What was the last completed step?"

</usage_example>

Related

• Planner Agent: .claude/agents/core/planner.md
• Memory files: .claude/context/memory/

Memory Protocol (MANDATORY)

Before starting:

cat .claude/context/memory/learnings.md

After completing:

• New pattern -> .claude/context/memory/learnings.md
• Issue found -> .claude/context/memory/issues.md
• Decision made -> .claude/context/memory/decisions.md

ASSUME INTERRUPTION: Your context may reset. If it's not in memory, it didn't happen.