Session handover loses uncommitted work state and memory falls out of sync

Bug Report

What happened

During a multi-session workflow on a macOS SwiftUI project (Lab Assistant), the following problems occurred:

1. Stale memory caused panic over non-existent data loss. Memory files (persistent cross-session notes) were not updated when commits were made. The next session loaded outdated memory (e.g. still referencing "Crosspoints" instead of "Mono Routing" which was renamed and committed 6 commits ago). This made it appear that committed work was missing, causing significant confusion and wasted time.

1. Session handover summary was misleading. When context was compacted and a new session resumed from a summary, the summary listed changes as "pending" that were actually already committed. This compounded the confusion from stale memory, making it seem like hours of work had been lost.

1. Uncommitted work from the current session was not clearly tracked. There was no clear distinction between what had been committed in previous sessions vs what was done in the current session, leading to uncertainty about the actual state of the codebase.

Expected behavior

• Memory files should be updated immediately when significant changes are committed, not left stale for the next session to inherit.
• Session handover summaries should clearly distinguish between committed work and uncommitted work.
• The system should not present already-committed changes as "missing" or "pending."

Impact

• User spent significant time believing hours of manual work had been lost, when it was actually safely committed.
• Trust in the tool was damaged.
• Productive work was interrupted by unnecessary investigation and emotional stress.

Environment

• Claude Code CLI on macOS (Darwin 24.6.0)
• Model: claude-opus-4-6
• Working on a Swift/SwiftUI Xcode project