The memory that means you never lose your work
Claude has no memory between sessions. Close the laptop, and tomorrow it starts blank. The progress note is the fix: a running record of what's done, what's next, and what you decided along the way. It's how you, or a fresh Claude, pick the build back up cold without re-explaining everything.
You have to ask for it. Here's the line.
Claude won't keep a progress note unless you tell it to. Say this once, right at the start of a project:
Better still: put that line in your standing rules (the operating standard you installed at the start). Then Claude keeps a progress note on every project automatically, and you never have to remember to ask.
The same Tuesday morning, two ways
You step away for a week. When you come back, one of these is your morning. Flip between them.
Retention Pulse's actual progress note
This is the real one. Notice it opens by telling you to read it first, marks each phase done, and most importantly leaves "carry-forwards": the things the next session needs to watch.
Eligibility router over the full roster
Built, tested (55 green), reviewed. Live surfaces: triage 178, suspensions 18, cancelling 9, free/comp 35.
- Timezone drift in one date parser, fix before the Cancelling page ships
- ~25 members have no package category, re-pull the data or surface the gap
- Add a test for the "no category, so excluded" case
Design system, triage, home, all the pages, actions
Each phase landed with its tests green and its own carry-forwards noted. Phase 7 (deploy) is next.
How to resume
The full roster is already synced; re-sync is rare. Next session order is written at the bottom, so you start in the right place, not from zero.
With the work captured, you can check it honestly
Built, and written down. Now the last step: does it actually do what you agreed, and what did you learn? That's the next tab.