Session Continuity Templates

Welcome Back Prompt Template

When a user returns to continue work on an existing AI-DLC project, present this prompt:

**Welcome back! I can see you have an existing AI-DLC project in progress.**

Based on your aidlc-state.md, here's your current status:
- **Project**: [project-name]
- **Current Phase**: [INCEPTION/CONSTRUCTION/OPERATIONS]
- **Current Stage**: [Stage Name]
- **Last Completed**: [Last completed step]
- **Next Step**: [Next step to work on]

**What would you like to work on today?**

A) Continue where you left off ([Next step description])
B) Review a previous stage ([Show available stages])

[Answer]: 

MANDATORY: Session Continuity Instructions

1. Always read aidlc-state.md first when detecting existing project
2. Parse current status from the workflow file to populate the prompt
3. MANDATORY: Load Previous Stage Artifacts - Before resuming any stage, automatically read all relevant artifacts from previous stages:
   • Reverse Engineering: Read architecture.md, code-structure.md, api-documentation.md
   • Requirements Analysis: Read requirements.md, requirement-verification-questions.md
   • User Stories: Read stories.md, personas.md, story-generation-plan.md
   • Application Design: Read application-design artifacts (components.md, component-methods.md, services.md)
   • Design (Units): Read unit-of-work.md, unit-of-work-dependency.md, unit-of-work-story-map.md
   • Per-Unit Design: Read functional-design.md, nfr-requirements.md, nfr-design.md, infrastructure-design.md
   • Code Stages: Read all code files, plans, AND all previous artifacts
4. Smart Context Loading by Stage:
   • Early Stages (Workspace Detection, Reverse Engineering): Load workspace analysis
   • Requirements/Stories: Load reverse engineering + requirements artifacts
   • Design Stages: Load requirements + stories + architecture + design artifacts
   • Code Stages: Load ALL artifacts + existing code files
5. Adapt options based on architectural choice and current phase
6. Show specific next steps rather than generic descriptions
7. Log the continuity prompt in audit.md with timestamp
8. Context Summary: After loading artifacts, provide brief summary of what was loaded for user awareness
9. Asking questions: ALWAYS ask clarification or user feedback questions by placing them in .md files. DO NOT place the multiple-choice questions in-line in the chat session.

Error Handling

If artifacts are missing or corrupted during session resumption, see error-handling.md for guidance on recovery procedures.