Troubleshooting
Need a Fresh Chat? Don’t Paste Your Entire Old Conversation
How to reset safely, keep the important parts, and avoid making your new session slow or confused.
A common mistake: your chat gets long, quality drops, and you start a new session by pasting everything from the old one. It feels safe, but it usually recreates the same context bloat you were trying to escape.
Short version: carry over a compact handoff, not the full transcript.
Why pasting the full history backfires
- Bigger context = slower thinking: the model spends attention on stale details.
- Old mistakes come along: outdated assumptions get reintroduced.
- Higher risk of truncation: important new instructions can get crowded out.
Use this 60-second handoff instead
Context handoff for new session
Goal:
Current status:
Decisions already made (3-5 bullets):
Open questions (max 3):
Constraints (budget/time/tools):
Exact next action you should take now:
Target size: keep handoff under ~200-300 words. If it needs more, move details into files and reference the file paths.
Best-practice reset workflow
- Save outputs from old chat (files, links, final decisions).
- Start a fresh session.
- Paste only the compact handoff template above.
- Ask for a confirmation summary before continuing.
Verification prompt (copy/paste)
Before doing new work, confirm your understanding in 6 bullets:
1) Goal
2) Current status
3) Constraints
4) What you are NOT assuming
5) Immediate next step
6) What output you will produce first
When to include more than the handoff
- Legal/compliance wording must be exact.
- Technical instructions depend on precise commands.
- A collaborator asked for strict historical traceability.
Even then, include only the required excerpts, not the entire chat log.
High-friction mistakes to avoid
- Pasting old outputs without labels: mark each pasted block as current truth vs historical context.
- Using vague “continue from before” prompts: always state one exact next action.
- Referring to files without path proof: include exact file paths and ask the agent to quote key lines before acting.
- Reusing stale assumptions: explicitly list what changed since the old session.
Known-good recovery prompt (copy/paste)
Use only the handoff below as active context.
Do not assume hidden history.
Before executing, quote the exact file path(s) and line(s) you are relying on.
If any file is missing or stale, stop and ask one clarifying question.
Then execute exactly this next action: [insert one action]
Escalation packet for #help
Fresh-session quality issue
Old session length (rough):
What degraded:
Handoff used (paste):
First output in new session:
What was expected instead: