[FEATURE] Bring the CLI session recap (/recap and the away summary) to the desktop app

Preflight Checklist

• [x] I have searched existing requests and this feature hasn't been requested yet
• [x] This is a single feature request (not multiple features)

Searched recap, away summary, and desktop recap. The three live recap issues (#85519, #85922, #86159) all ask for changes to the CLI recap. None asks for the feature in the desktop app.

Problem Statement

I come back to a desktop session and cannot tell where it stands without reading the scrollback.

I run many Claude Code desktop sessions at once, one per git worktree, and I switch between them all day. Every switch costs the same tax: scroll up, find the last few tool calls, work out what the session was doing and what it was about to do next.

The CLI already solves this. Version 2.1.258 shows a session recap when you return after being idle, and /recap generates one on demand. The desktop app has neither, so the app where I keep the most sessions is the one with the least help returning to them.

The gap is larger in the desktop app than in the terminal. A terminal user blurs one window and comes back to it. A desktop user picks one session out of a sidebar of a dozen, so the "where was I" cost is paid on every switch, not just after a break.

Proposed Solution

Bring both halves of the CLI feature to the desktop app.

1. On-demand recap. A /recap command in the desktop app, matching the CLI's "Generate a one-line session recap now".
2. Return recap. When I open a session I have not looked at for a while, show the same short recap line the CLI shows: the goal, the current task, and the one next action.
3. A setting to turn it off. The CLI has a Session recap toggle in /config, backed by awaySummaryEnabled. The desktop app needs the equivalent in its own settings UI, because /config opens a terminal dialog that desktop sessions cannot show.

Two desktop-specific details worth deciding on:

• Trigger on session switch, not just on window blur. The CLI reads terminal focus (msSinceFocus, blurDurationMs). In the desktop app the useful signal is per-session: how long since I last viewed this session, not since I last looked at the app.
• Show it in the sidebar too. A one-line recap on each session row would let me pick the right session without opening three of them first. This is the same need behind #85519, which asks the CLI recap to name its repo.

Reusing the CLI's existing skip rules would be good: it already declines to recap when background work is pending or a loop wakeup is queued.

Alternative Solutions

• Session titles. They tell me the topic, never the state. A title set an hour ago does not say what the session is doing now.
• Scrolling the transcript. What I do today. It works and it is slow, and it is worst on long sessions where the answer is furthest from the bottom.
• Asking the session. Typing "where are we" works, but it costs a full turn on the session model and lands in the transcript as real conversation. The CLI recap runs outside the turn, which is the better shape.
• The /standup style skill. I have a project skill that reports session state. It is a workaround for the same gap, and it needs me to remember to invoke it, per session.

Priority

High - Significant impact on productivity

Feature Category

Other (Claude Code desktop app)

Use Case Example

1. I have twelve desktop sessions open, one per worktree, each on its own branch.
2. I spend forty minutes in one session reviewing a PR.
3. I switch back to a session I last touched two hours ago. It has run maybe sixty tool calls since.
4. Today: I scroll up, read tool calls backwards, and reconstruct what it was doing.
5. With this feature: the session shows one line at the top saying the goal, the current task, and the next action, the same way the CLI does.
6. I pick up in seconds instead of a minute or two, times a dozen switches a day.

Additional Context

What I observed in the CLI, version 2.1.258 on Windows:

• The /config menu has a Session recap toggle, alongside Prompt suggestions and Rewind code (checkpoints).
• The setting is awaySummaryEnabled, documented as: "When false, the session recap (shown when you return after being away for 5+ minutes) is disabled. When absent or true, recap is enabled."
• The recap prompt asks for "under 40 words, 1-2 plain sentences, no markdown. Lead with the overall goal and current task, then the one next action."
• /recap exists as a command, described as "Generate a one-line session recap now", and answers "Nothing to recap yet" on an empty session.
• There is a DISABLE_AWAY_SUMMARY escape hatch and a CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_REMOTE_RECAP flag.

Desktop app version 1.40609.1. I could not find a /recap command in a desktop session's command list, and could not find a session recap setting in the app.

Related, all CLI-scoped: #85519 (recap should name the repo, which matters more with many sessions), #86159 (make the idle threshold configurable), #85922 (recap billing), and closed #48084 (docs for /recap and the away-summary controls).