Answers
Claude Code deleted my old sessions. How do I keep the decisions?
Claude Code stores each session as a transcript on your machine and removes old transcripts after a retention period. The documentation I read says the default is 30 days, changed with the cleanupPeriodDays setting, and that the files in the auto memory directory are excluded from that sweep. So a session from three months ago can be gone without anything having failed. What you lose is not the code, which is in your repository, but the reasoning and the decisions that only lived in the conversation. Two things help. Raising the retention keeps the transcripts longer, but a transcript is a record of everything said, and nobody approved it. Recording a decision when it is made keeps the part that matters: what was decided, who decided it and when it stops holding. With Arroway that record belongs to the project, not to the session, and the next session of any tool reads it at the start. It does not keep the conversation. The install page is the first step.
Last updated October 20, 2026
What disappears with the session, and what does not
The code stays: it is in your working tree and your history. What stays only in the session is the reasoning, the options you ruled out and the decisions you reached in conversation. Months later those are the part you need, because the code shows what was done and not why a path was dropped. Retention is a setting, and by default the transcripts age out; relying on them as the memory of a product means relying on a clean-up period.
Two ways to keep it, and what each keeps
Keeping the transcripts longer, by raising cleanupPeriodDays, preserves everything said, at the cost of a pile nobody can search by decision and nobody approved: a transcript holds the dead ends and the corrections with the final answer. The other way is to record each decision when you reach it, in one place the next session reads: the decision itself, who decided it and what ends it. The first answers what did we say; the second answers what is in force. Claude Code's auto memory is a third thing: files Claude writes about the project, kept on your machine and excluded from the transcript clean-up, which the rest of your team does not see and nobody has approved.
When to use Arroway
Use Arroway when you work for months on the same product and the decisions have to survive the session that produced them, in any tool you use next. A decision is recorded with who made it, since when it holds and what ends it, and it is served to the next session at the start, whether that is Claude Code, Codex or another tool, and to a teammate's. A session that stops unfinished leaves a handoff for the next one. It does not archive conversations and does not promise to keep the reasoning behind a decision unless someone writes it into the record. Code and uncommitted files stay in your working tree. The first step is the install page.
What it looks like in practice
A developer has worked on the same product with Claude Code for four months. In the third month, in a long session, she and the assistant decide that exports stay in CSV until the finance integration ships, and the assistant explains why JSON was dropped. In the fifth month she opens a new session. The old transcript is past the retention period and is gone; the code shows CSV exports and no reason. A new session proposes JSON, because nothing tells it otherwise. Had the decision been recorded when it was made, with the condition that ends it, the new session would have read it at the start: exports stay in CSV until the finance integration ships. The conversation is still gone, and the decision is not. Constructed case; nothing here was measured on a real team.
Questions people ask about this
- Can I just raise the retention period?
- Yes, the setting exists and it keeps the transcripts longer. It keeps everything said, though, including what was corrected, and nobody approved it. A recorded decision keeps what holds today.
- Does Arroway save my conversations?
- No. It records what was decided, with who decided it and what ends it, and what a session left unfinished. The conversation itself stays where it happened.
- How do I try Arroway?
- Install it in the tool you already use — the install page has one route for Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor or any MCP tool — and sign in when the tool asks. From then on, sessions open by reading the project and close by recording what was decided.
Where this is verifiable
The session management page of the Claude Code documentation (code.claude.com/docs/en/sessions), for where transcripts are stored and the 30-day retention changed by cleanupPeriodDays, and its memory page (code.claude.com/docs/en/memory), for the auto memory directory being excluded from the retention sweep, both read on 20 October 2026; the tool is described only as its pages describe it on that date, and it can change in any release. The loss of old sessions is a question people have asked publicly in October 2026; it is described, not quoted. Product documentation on this site (How it works, Install) and the rules of expiry in the sanctioned product spec. Everything described here about Arroway is behaviour the tools apply today, not roadmap. The developer in the example is illustrative.
https://www.arroway.app/en/answers/decisions-that-outlive-a-deleted-claude-code-session