Session picker should show continuation/chain linkage between transcripts
Status Open
Maintainer reply None cached
Activity 0 comments · opened Aug 13, 2026
Feature request
When a session runs out of context and continues into a new transcript, the two files become separate entries in claude --resume (and the claude.ai/code list) with no visible relationship. Long-running work produces chains of 3–5 transcript files that look like unrelated sessions.
What the transcripts show today
- A continuation re-stamps the carried-over history with its own
sessionId— there is noparentSessionId/origin field linking a chunk to its predecessor. - The only de-facto linkage signals are accidental: identical first prompt/birth timestamp, and the
custom-titlerecord — which propagates forward only. Rename a session before it continues and the whole chain shares the name; rename after and earlier chunks keep stale auto-titles, so the chain looks unrelated in the picker. /rewindcannot cross the boundary (by design), so finding the earlier chunk is exactly the moment you need the linkage — and today that means grepping~/.claude/projects/for matching first timestamps.
Ask
- Record explicit chain metadata at continuation time (e.g.
parentSessionIdin the new transcript's header records). - Use it in the resume picker and the claude.ai/code session list: group a chain under one entry (expandable), or at least badge continuations ("continued from …") and sort them together.
- Propagate a rename across the whole chain (or offer to).
Why it matters
Real example that prompted this: a two-week feature produced a 4-file chain plus a sibling worktree chain. After the worktree was torn down, reconstructing which transcript held which era of the work required inspecting file headers by hand; the picker showed five unrelated-looking sessions.