claude-checkpoint

Save your Claude Code session before /clear. Restore it after.

Why

/clear nukes everything. All the decisions, corrections, file context, and working state — gone. You need to clear because you hit context limits, but then you spend the next ten minutes re-explaining what you were doing.

claude-checkpoint fixes this. Before you clear, run /checkpoint. It extracts your conversation into a markdown file and has Claude write a structured summary. After clearing, run /restore and Claude picks up exactly where you left off.

Quick start

/checkpoint        # saves last 100 messages
/clear             # wipe context as usual
/restore           # Claude continues like nothing happened

That's it. Three commands.

Install

For Claude Code users — paste this into any session:

Install https://github.com/sinzin91/claude-checkpoint and set up the /checkpoint and /restore commands.

Claude will handle the rest.

Manual install

cargo install claude-checkpoint
claude-checkpoint install

Or as a Claude Code plugin:

claude plugin marketplace add sinzin91/claude-checkpoint
claude plugin install claude-checkpoint

From source

git clone https://github.com/sinzin91/claude-checkpoint.git
cd claude-checkpoint
bash install.sh

Pre-built binaries

Grab a tarball from GitHub Releases — Linux and macOS, x86_64 and ARM.

Uninstall

claude-checkpoint uninstall        # removes slash commands from ~/.claude
cargo uninstall claude-checkpoint  # removes the binary (if installed via cargo)

Usage

/checkpoint        # save last 100 messages (default)
/checkpoint 50     # or pick a number

Claude extracts the raw messages, writes a summary (goal, decisions, files touched, corrections, next step), and saves it all to /tmp/checkpoint-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.md.

/restore                                     # most recent checkpoint
/restore /tmp/checkpoint-20260403-161507.md   # specific file

Claude reads it back and continues working. No preamble, no "welcome back", just picks up the thread.

Standalone CLI

You can also run the binary directly outside of Claude Code:

claude-checkpoint extract --last 100 --output /tmp/checkpoint.md
claude-checkpoint extract --session ~/.claude/projects/-Users-me/abc123.jsonl

What gets saved

Two sections in the checkpoint file:

Summary — Claude generates this during /checkpoint: the goal, current task, files modified, key decisions, corrections you made, working patterns, blockers, and the literal next step. These are the things that get lost first when context compacts.

Raw messages — the actual human/assistant exchanges pulled from the session JSONL. Tool calls and thinking blocks are stripped out to keep it lean.

How it finds the session

The binary walks ~/.claude/projects/ looking for the most recently modified .jsonl file (max depth 3, skips subagent sessions). Pass --session to point it at a specific file instead.

Requirements

Claude Code
macOS or Linux
Rust (only if building from source)

License

MIT