continues

You hit the rate limit mid-debug. 30 messages of context — file changes, architecture decisions, half-finished refactors — and now you either wait hours or start fresh in another tool. continues grabs your session from whichever AI coding tool you were using and hands it off to another one. Conversation history, file changes, working state — all of it comes along.

npx continues

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/6945f3a5-bd19-45ab-9702-6df8e165a734

Supported tools

16 AI coding agents, any-to-any handoff:

Claude Code · Codex · GitHub Copilot CLI · Gemini CLI · Cursor · Amp · Cline · Roo Code · Kilo Code · Kiro · Crush · OpenCode · Factory Droid · Antigravity · Kimi CLI · Qwen Code

That's 240 cross-tool handoff paths. Pick any source, pick any destination — it works.

Install

No install needed — just run npx continues. Or install globally:

npm install -g continues    # gives you `continues` and `cont`

How it works

1. Discovery — scans session directories for all 16 tools
2. Parsing — reads each tool's native format (JSONL, JSON, SQLite, YAML — they're all different)
3. Extraction — pulls recent messages, file changes, tool activity, AI reasoning
4. Handoff — generates a structured context doc and injects it into the target tool

The handoff document is designed so the receiving agent immediately understands what you were doing, what files were touched, what commands ran, and what's left to do.

Usage

Interactive (default)

Just run continues. It finds all your sessions, lets you pick one, and asks where to continue:

┌  continues — pick up where you left off
│
│  Found 1842 sessions across 16 CLI tools
│    claude: 723  codex: 72  cursor: 68  copilot: 39  ...
│
◆  Select a session
│  [claude]   2026-02-19 05:28  my-project    Debugging SSH tunnel config   84a36c5d
│  [copilot]  2026-02-19 04:41  my-project    Migrate presets from Electron c2f5974c
│  [codex]    2026-02-18 23:12  my-project    Fix OpenCode SQLite parser    a1e90b3f
│  ...
└

◆  Continue in:
│  ○ Gemini   ○ Codex   ○ Amp   ○ Kiro   ...
└

When you run from a project directory, sessions from that directory are prioritized.

Quick resume

Skip the picker entirely — resume the Nth most recent session from a tool:

continues claude        # latest Claude session
continues codex 3       # 3rd most recent Codex
continues amp           # latest Amp
continues cline         # latest Cline
continues kiro          # latest Kiro
continues crush         # latest Crush
continues kimi          # latest Kimi
continues qwen-code     # latest Qwen Code

Works for all 16 tools. This uses native resume — same tool, full history, no context injection.

Cross-tool handoff

This is the main thing. Start in one tool, finish in another:

# Hit the Claude rate limit? Hand it off to Gemini:
continues resume abc123 --in gemini

# Or pass flags through to the destination tool:
continues resume abc123 --in codex --yolo --search --add-dir /tmp

# Or print the exact handoff prompt without launching the target tool:
continues resume abc123 --in codex --debug-prompt

continues maps common flags (model, sandbox, auto-approve, extra dirs) to the target tool's equivalent. Anything it doesn't recognize gets passed through as-is.

--debug-prompt is for handoff inspection and testing. It writes the handoff file as usual, then prints the exact prompt that would be passed to the target agent and exits without launching it.

Scripting & CI

continues list                          # table output
continues list --source claude --json   # JSON, filtered
continues list --jsonl -n 10            # JSONL, last 10
continues scan                          # discovery stats
continues scan --rebuild                # force re-index

Inspect (for debugging)

See exactly what gets parsed and what ends up in the handoff:

continues inspect abc123                              # diagnostic view
continues inspect abc123 --preset full --write-md handoff.md   # dump full markdown
continues inspect abc123 --truncate 50                # compact one-liner view

Dump (bulk export)

Export all sessions to files for backup, analysis, or archival:

# Export all sessions to markdown (default)
continues dump all ./sessions

# Export specific tool's sessions
continues dump claude ./sessions/claude
continues dump gemini ./sessions/gemini

# Export as JSON instead of markdown
continues dump all ./sessions --json

# Control verbosity with presets
continues dump all ./sessions --preset full

# Limit number of sessions
continues dump all ./sessions --limit 50

File naming: {source}_{id}.md or {source}_{id}.json

Verbosity control

Not every handoff needs to be a novel. Four presets control how much detail goes in:

| Preset | Messages | Tool samples | Subagent detail | When to use | |:-------|:---------|:-------------|:----------------|:------------| | minimal | 3 | 0 | None | Quick context, token-constrained targets | | standard | 10 | 5 | 500 chars | Default — good balance | | verbose | 20 | 10 | 2000 chars | Debugging, complex multi-file tasks | | full | 50 | All | Everything | Complete session capture |

continues resume abc123 --preset full

YAML config

For per-project defaults, drop a .continues.yml in your project root:

preset: verbose
recentMessages: 15
shell:
  maxSamples: 10
  stdoutLines: 20

Resolution order: --config <path> → .continues.yml in cwd → ~/.continues/config.yml → standard preset. See .continues.example.yml for the full reference.

What gets extracted

Every tool stores sessions differently — different formats, different schemas, different paths. Here's what continues reads:

| Tool | Format | Where it lives | |:-----|:-------|:---------------| | Claude Code | JSONL | ~/.claude/projects/ | | Codex | JSONL | ~/.codex/sessions/ | | Copilot | YAML + JSONL | ~/.copilot/session-state/ | | Gemini CLI | JSON | ~/.gemini/tmp/*/chats/ | | OpenCode | SQLite | ~/.local/share/opencode/storage/ | | Factory Droid | JSONL + JSON | ~/.factory/sessions/ | | Cursor | JSONL | ~/.cursor/projects/*/agent-transcripts/ | | Amp | JSON | ~/.local/share/amp/threads/ | | Kiro | JSON | ~/Library/Application Support/Kiro/workspace-sessions/ | | Crush | SQLite | ~/.crush/crush.db | | Cline | JSON | VS Code globalStorage/saoudrizwan.claude-dev/tasks/ | | Roo Code | JSON | VS Code globalStorage/rooveterinaryinc.roo-cline/tasks/ | | Kilo Code | JSON | VS Code globalStorage/kilocode.kilo-code/tasks/ | | Antigravity | PB + brain artifacts + optional live RPC | ~/.gemini/antigravity/ | | Kimi CLI | JSONL + JSON | ~/.kimi/sessions/ | | Qwen Code | JSONL | ~/.qwen/projects/*/chats/ |

All reads are read-only — continues never modifies your session files. Index cached at ~/.continues/sessions.jsonl (5-min TTL, auto-refresh).

Tool activity in handoffs

The handoff document includes a Tool Activity section so the target agent knows what was done, not just what was said:

## Tool Activity
- **Bash** (×47): `$ npm test → exit 0` · `$ git status → exit 0` · `$ npm run build → exit 1`
- **Edit** (×12): `edit src/auth.ts` · `edit src/api/routes.ts` · `edit tests/auth.test.ts`
- **Grep** (×8): `grep "handleLogin" src/` · `grep "JWT_SECRET"` · `grep "middleware"`

## Session Notes
- **Model**: claude-sonnet-4
- **Tokens**: 45,230 in / 12,847 out
- 💭 Need to handle the edge case where token refresh races with logout

This works for all 16 tools — bash commands, file reads/writes/edits, grep/glob, MCP tool calls, thinking blocks, subagent dispatches, token usage, model info. The shared SummaryCollector keeps the format consistent regardless of source.

Every handoff also includes the full file path of the original session, so the receiving tool can trace back to the raw data if needed.

Commands reference

| Command | What it does | |:--------|:-------------| | continues | Interactive TUI picker | | continues list | List sessions (--source, --json, --jsonl, -n) | | continues resume <id> | Resume by ID (--in <tool>, --preset) | | continues inspect <id> | Diagnostic view (--truncate, --write-md, --preset) | | continues dump <source\|all> <dir> | Bulk export sessions (--json, --preset, --limit) | | continues scan | Discovery stats (--rebuild) | | continues rebuild | Force-rebuild session index | | continues <tool> [n] | Quick-resume Nth session from any of the 16 tools |

Global flags: --config <path>, --preset <name>, --verbose, --debug

Community contributions

This started as a 7-tool project and grew fast thanks to contributors:

• Factory Droid support — #1, first community parser
• Cursor AI support — #4 by @Evrim267, with smart slug-to-path resolution
• Single-tool error handling — #3 by @barisgirismen, clear error when only one CLI is installed
• Env var overrides — #14 by @yutakobayashidev, respects CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR, CODEX_HOME, GEMINI_CLI_HOME, XDG_DATA_HOME

The latest batch — Amp, Kiro, Crush, Cline, Roo Code, Kilo Code, Antigravity, Kimi CLI, and Qwen Code — was added by reverse-engineering mnemo's Go ada