Context and artifacts

A chat’s context is everything the agent can draw on: where it started, what you attach, and the running transcript of the session. The agent reads files directly from the lane’s worktree on demand, so you don’t paste source — point it at the right place and let it inspect.

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What the agent starts with

A new chat opens with its working context already set from the lane: the lane’s name, branch, and working directory are injected so the agent knows which worktree it’s in and where it can write. From there, its context is:

• Your prompt and any attachments you add.
• The lane’s files, read on demand from the worktree.
• A linked Linear issue, when the lane already has one connected.
• The session transcript — the running record of the conversation.

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Attach the spec

When a task has acceptance criteria, attach the Linear issue from the composer so the agent works from the real spec instead of your paraphrase. ADE writes the issue into a per-session context file the agent can read, and — when the chat is on a lane — links the issue so it shows up in the next PR’s “Linked Linear issues” block. You can also attach images directly to a message — screenshots, mockups, or diagrams the agent should match or debug.

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The transcript and turns

Everything the agent draws — messages, reasoning, tool calls, commands, file changes, plans, and questions — is one stream of events that the UI renders as the transcript. Each exchange is a turn: your message, the agent’s work, and a final marker that records the model, token usage, and (on a lane) a per-turn diff summary. The transcript persists to disk, so a session survives an app restart. When you resume a chat, ADE rehydrates the provider’s own session and injects a continuity summary, so the next turn picks up where you left off instead of starting cold.

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The context window

Long chats eventually fill the model’s context window. Providers compact context automatically as it fills, and you’ll see a marker in the transcript when they do. When a session gets long:

• Continue if the agent is still on track.
• Ask the agent to summarize the current state.
• Start a fresh session in the same lane, seeded with that summary.
• Re-attach the key logs or screenshots rather than relying on old messages.

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Recover old context

Use History to reopen past transcripts, inspect their tool calls, and recover proof or PR links from earlier sessions. A summary pulled from a finished session is the cleanest way to seed a new one in the same lane.