/save

The aha: Before: you finish a Cowork session where you reviewed Hue's CPL spike, decided to test creative variant B, and committed to check with Yvette about Lasso attribution. You close the tab. A week later you're prepping for the Marcon check-in and you can't remember what you decided about creative B, whether you ever talked to Yvette, or what the CPL actually was. The session disappeared. Now you type /save at the end of the conversation and Claude routes what you discussed to the right files — performance.md gets the CPL note, campaign.md gets the creative test status, and MEMORY.md gets the Yvette action item. Next session, Claude reads all of that back automatically. Your context compounds instead of evaporating.

What you need to know (2 min read)

/save is the end-of-session habit that keeps your client context fresh. You run it after you've done work in Cowork — reviewed performance, had a conversation about a campaign, drafted a brief, debriefed a meeting — and Claude writes the relevant bits to the right files.

What it updates:

• Your personal MEMORY.md (in your local Claude folder) — action items, decisions, session notes
• Client context files (local first, Drive optional) — campaign.md, health.md, performance.md, production.md, brief.md, contacts.md depending on what was discussed

Local-first by default. /save writes to your local Claude folder first. If the files are ready to share with the team, you explicitly say "yes, sync to Drive" and Claude handles it. Most work stays local — Drive is for sharing finished work.

How it works

When you run /save, Claude walks through four steps:

Step 1 — What client/project was this about? Claude looks for file paths you read or wrote, client names mentioned, account IDs referenced. If ambiguous, it asks once.

Step 2 — What kind of work? Pattern-matches the conversation against the client context file framework:

• Strategy, audience, landing page, benchmarks → campaign.md
• Active issues, "we're seeing", flags, ad rejections → health.md
• Numbers, trends, CPL up/down, pacing → performance.md
• Creative briefs, asset specs, launch checklists → production.md
• Pre-launch strategy (when project isn't live yet) → brief.md

A single save can touch multiple files. That's normal.

Step 3 — Personal vs. project. Action items for you go to MEMORY.md. Decisions/state about the client go to context files. Things that are both go to both.

Step 4 — Where to write?

• Personal files (MEMORY.md, save state) → your local Claude folder, always
• Client context files → your local Claude folder FIRST (draft), then Claude asks: "Ready to sync to the shared Drive so the team can see them?" You pick:
• Yes → syncs via your drive-access-mode (native filesystem, gws CLI, Drive MCP, or manual upload for PC users)
• Not yet → stays local, you can sync later with /save --sync
• Always sync on save → flips a flag; future saves skip the prompt (only works in native or gws-cli modes)

Three maturity tiers

/save adapts to your experience.

Learning tier (default, first 5 saves) — Conversational, file-by-file. Claude shows each file it wants to update, explains what the file is for, and asks for approval. Teaches the framework while doing the work.

Confirming tier (after 5 saves) — Single-screen confirm-all. Claude shows the full diff for all files in one view, you approve with one click.

Trusting tier (after 15 saves) — Silent auto-route. Claude writes everything and shows a one-line summary. Undo is always available via /save --undo.

You can override the tier any time: /save --tier learning if you want hand-holding back.

Try it yourself

1. Have a real conversation in Cowork first. Review some Marcon performance data, discuss a campaign, draft something. /save needs something to save.
2. Type: /save
3. In learning mode, Claude will walk you through file by file. Watch where it wants to write each thing — that's how you learn the framework.
4. Example session to try: tell Claude "I just looked at Marcon Hue's performance. CPL is up to $52 from $42 last week. Variant B is winning on CTR but A is converting better. Need to check with Yvette about Lasso attribution." Then run /save. You should see it:

• Route the CPL spike to performance.md
• Route the creative test status to campaign.md
• Route the Yvette action item to MEMORY.md

1. After it writes locally, Claude will ask if you want to sync to Drive. Try each path — "not yet" (stays local), "yes" (syncs), "always" (sets the flag).

Quick reference

Tips

• Run it at the end of every real work session. If you did something worth remembering, save it. Don't save tiny lookups — save actual work.
• Learning mode is a feature, not friction. The first 5 saves teach you which file is for what. Once you know, it auto-promotes to confirming mode.
• Undo is always one command away. /save --undo restores the last save's backup. Don't be afraid to let it try something.
• Drive sync is optional and explicit. Most saves can stay local. Sync to Drive when you have something worth sharing with the team.
• For PC users: you'll be in local-only mode. When Claude asks about Drive sync, it'll tell you exactly which file to download and where to upload it via browser. Same result, different sync step.
• If /save routes something to the wrong file, tell it. "That should go in health.md, not campaign.md." It updates and learns.

Related

• onboard — Prerequisite — sets up where /save writes files
• context-files-explained — The 5 context file types /save routes to
• good-morning — The morning companion — your saved context shows up here
• good-night — End-of-day wrap — auto-runs /save if you haven't
• local-first-workflow — Why /save defaults to local
• update-context — The client-scoped variant when you don't have a working session, just a change to record