Sessions, resets, and reviewable history

Begin with the question that precedes every useful action: where am I, and what state have I actually recovered?

A saved conversation can explain yesterday’s decision without restoring yesterday’s files. A reset can empty model context while retaining earlier journal entries. A local export can include history that a compact transcript view does not show. These distinctions make continuity the foundation for the rest of the book.

Follow the three desks

Return Desk begins with a deliberately small disagreement: yesterday’s Lantern Board conversation says “Ready for pickup,” while today’s workspace says “Packed and waiting.” The correct result is not to make those observations match. It is to identify the intended journal and understand that the current file remains current. Read the ledger before using the helper, and use the complete generated environment if you rehearse native resume or continue.

Decision Desk separates a conversational fork from workspace isolation, then gives fresh, clear, and new different jobs. The important identity is the persistent header identity exposed by SessionManager.getSessionId(). The source’s AgentSession.sessionId is provider-facing and can change without a new journal being created.

Review Packet follows material out of the active conversation into dumps, sidecars, HTML, and possible sharing routes. The Harbor Notes parent, Scout, and Checklist journals make older and nested content inspectable without exposing a real session. This is different from the later Extension part’s Review Desk, which records local review decisions and has no publishing operation.

Use the lab without borrowing personal history

The public starting points are Return Desk’s fixture inventory, its lab helper, Decision Desk’s recipe, and Review Packet’s inspection recipe.

The helper creates owned fictional material; it does not launch OMP. Native resume and continue practice uses the same actual terminal tab and generated environment. If startup asks for model or authentication setup, stop rather than importing credentials or substituting a personal journal. Fixture inspection remains useful even when native interaction is blocked.

The missing-directory and failure chapters are decision exercises. They are not instructions to delete a directory, manufacture a live provider failure, or force a transition past a guard.

Keep the evidence attached

The continuity ledger is the recurring reference. The operation decision matrix is a lookup aid after the worked chapters, not a replacement for their prerequisites and failure phases.

The recorded checks include manager, SDK, controller, parser, and read-only RPC startup paths, plus a separate headless-browser export check. They do not establish physical terminal behavior, universal rollback, real provider repair, or live upload cancellation. The final evidence chapter preserves those limits in full.