# Session 2: Resumption

**Date:** 2026-02-11
**Phase:** Bootstrap (Phase 0) — Between crash resilience and persistence
**Participants:** Human + Claude Code agent

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## What happened

New session, new agent instance. The handoff worked — session context, `.claude/handoff.md`, and the journal itself gave the incoming agent enough to reconstruct the full picture without re-reading every file.

Started with a continuity check, then moved into UI refinement and design system extraction. Two threads of work:

### 1. Session handoff validation

Confirmed that the combination of session context (injected at startup) and structured docs (CLAUDE.md, roadmap, handoff note) lets a fresh agent instance pick up seamlessly. No re-explanation needed.

### 2. Interface design system + UI polish

Ran the interface design extraction skill to formalize Compose's visual language into `.interface-design/system.md`. This codifies the "warm dark workshop" aesthetic — warm carbon surfaces, ember/indigo accents, cream text hierarchy, border-only depth (no shadows).

Alongside, several UI refinements:
- **Terminal sizing fix:** PTY now starts at the actual terminal dimensions instead of hardcoded 80x24. Client passes `cols`/`rows` as query params and sends a resize event on connect.
- **Terminal padding tightened:** Reduced from 12px/16px to 8px/0 — the terminal should feel like a native surface, not a padded embed.
- **Header padding adjusted:** 4px to 3px, tighter fit.
- **Status endpoint added:** `/api/status` for quick session/phase visibility.

## What we confirmed

1. **Session handoff works.** The journal + CLAUDE.md + session context pattern is sufficient for cross-instance continuity.

2. **Design system extraction is useful infrastructure.** Having the palette, typography, spacing, and depth strategy codified means future UI work can be consistent without re-deriving from first principles.

3. **Terminal dimension sync matters.** The 80x24 hardcode caused layout mismatches — PTY and xterm.js need to agree on size from the start.

## What's next

Phase 0.4: persistence connector. The plan exists (`docs/plans/2026-02-11-persistence-connector-plan.md`), the shape drift is documented (`docs/evaluations/2026-02-11-bootstrap-progress.md`). Time to wire it.

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*Next: persistence connector — make Compose's UI talk to `.compose/` instead of Base44.*
