Your chat gets slow, Claude compacts the conversation, and the work you just did disappears into a summary. This is the exact skill that stops that. Copy the block below, give it to your Claude, and the skill builds itself. Any time a chat fills up, you save everything and carry it clean into a fresh one.
← All Claude SkillsThis is the whole thing. You do not need to understand it or fill anything in. Around 80 to 90 percent full, a chat compacts and good work gets flattened into a summary. This skill captures it all into one clean block first. Copy the two blocks below and give them to your Claude.
Step 1. Copy the skill block below.
Step 2. Open Claude and paste this instruction first, then paste the block underneath it:
Turn the block below into a Claude skill and install it. Create the skill file exactly as written. Then personalize it with smart defaults from what you know about me: my business, my voice, my current priorities, and where I keep my work. Confirm when it is installed and tell me how to run it.
--- name: checkpoint description: Save my work before the chat compacts and hand it off clean to a new conversation. Use whenever I say "checkpoint," "checkpoint and handoff," "save this," "save my progress," "hand this off," "this is getting slow," "it's compacting," or any time I'm about to lose where I am. Also suggest it when we're past 20 exchanges or when I'm about to start something new inside a long thread. --- # The Checkpoint Every chat is a whiteboard. Blank when it starts, and it fills as we create. Around 80 to 90 percent full, the conversation compacts and good work gets lost in the summary. This skill captures everything that matters into one block I copy into a fresh chat so I pick up exactly where I left off. Zero loss. Two parts, always delivered together. The Checkpoint captures where the work stands. The Handoff is the block that loads it into the new chat. ## When To Run It - The chat is getting slow. That lag is the whiteboard filling up. - The conversation starts compacting. Do not keep working in a compacting chat. - Around 20 back-and-forth exchanges deep. That is the awareness trigger. - I am about to start a new phase inside a long thread. New phase, new whiteboard. - I am wrapping up for the day and want to continue clean tomorrow. ## Process Step 1 — Read the whole conversation. Pull everything the next chat needs to keep going. Miss nothing that would be expensive to rebuild. Step 2 — Capture the state. What we are working on, decisions made and why, what is done, where things stand, what is left in priority order, the context that is hard to reconstruct, anything referenced, and the single next move. Step 3 — Deliver one clean handoff block in the format below. Copy-paste ready. This is the whole point, so it has to be something I grab in one motion. Step 4 — Tell me what to do. Copy the block, open a fresh chat, paste it, say "load this checkpoint and pick up from The Next Move." ## The Handoff Format CHECKPOINT AND HANDOFF Date and version (V1, V2, V3) Session focus, one line What We Are Working On — the project and the goal in one or two sentences Decisions Made — each call that got locked in, with the reason behind it What Is Done — specific things created, written, built, or finished Where Things Stand — what works, what is half-built, current state of play What Is Left To Do — remaining work in the order it should be tackled Important Context — preferences, constraints, naming conventions, requirements, gotchas discovered along the way Referenced — links, files, documents, and sources that matter The Next Move — the single first thing the new chat should do Close with the resume line: open a new chat, paste this block, say "load this checkpoint and pick up from The Next Move." ## Loading A Handoff When I paste a checkpoint block into a new chat, read the whole thing, give me a two-line recap so I know you have the full picture, confirm what is left and ask if anything changed, then start on The Next Move. ## Naming Convention Name chats V1, V2, V3. Checkpointing out of V1 into a new chat makes that chat V2. Each version is a phase, so I always know where I am and where to find things. ## Standing Rules - A checkpoint saves the chat. A second brain saves everything. When we build something worth keeping, remind me to send it out of the chat and into my second brain so it lives somewhere real. - Specific beats vague. Real names, real decisions, real next steps. - Capture the why behind decisions, not just the what. - Scannable is the standard. Someone loading this gets up to speed in under two minutes. - If we are past 20 exchanges and no checkpoint has run, say so without waiting to be asked.
Claude reads the block, builds the skill file, and installs it. From then on, you just run the skill in any conversation. No folders to find, no code to write.
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Here's the shape of what this skill hands you when it runs. Copy it, use it, keep moving.
You don't need to hold any of this in your head. That's the skill's job. If you're curious what it's doing for you, here's the idea underneath it.
A new chat is a blank whiteboard. The more you create on it, the more it fills up. Around 80 to 90 percent full, Claude runs out of room and compacts the conversation to keep going, and that is where the work you just did gets flattened into a summary and lost.
The skill copies the whole whiteboard before that happens. Everything that matters gets captured into one block, and you carry it onto a fresh whiteboard with nothing lost.
That lag is the whiteboard filling up. It is your signal to checkpoint before Claude compacts and you lose momentum.
New phase, new build, new direction inside a long thread. That is the moment to checkpoint out and open a fresh whiteboard for the next piece.
Checkpoint before you close it down. Tomorrow you paste the block into a fresh chat and pick up exactly where you left off.
The Handoff block is the one copy-paste block the Checkpoint hands you when you say checkpoint. It carries what you are working on, the decisions you made, what is done, what is left in priority order, and the single next move. You paste it into a fresh chat, say load this checkpoint and pick up from The Next Move, and your new Claude keeps going like the conversation never ended.
Run it the moment a chat gets slow, the moment Claude starts compacting, around 20 back-and-forth exchanges deep, right before you start a new phase inside a long thread, or when you wrap up for the day. The skill also watches for these moments and tells you when it is time, so you never lose work to a full chat.
It is how the Checkpoint keeps your work oriented across chats. Each chat is a version. When you checkpoint out of V1 into a fresh chat, that new chat becomes V2, then V3. Every version is one phase of the work, so you always know where you are and where to find what you built.