# Session

Concept · [Building with AI](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/ai)

Also called: agent session, chat session, sessions, conversation, thread, chat thread

One stretch of work with an [AI agent](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/ai-agent), from a blank start until it is cleared, closed or [compacted](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/compaction). Everything the agent remembers lives inside the session. A new session knows nothing about the last one unless you give it notes.

**For example:** A [founder](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/founder) plans a feature in one session in the morning, starts a new session after lunch, and has to point the [agent](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/ai-agent) at the saved plan again.

## Connects to (13)

- [AI agent](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/ai-agent): An AI tool that does more than answer a question.
- [Context window](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/context-window): How much text an LLM can take into account at one time.
- [Turn](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/turn): One round of a conversation with an agent: you send a message, and the agent works until it hands control back to you.
- [Stateful](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/stateful): Describes something that carries information forward from one moment to the next.
- [Clearing](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/clearing): Ending a session and starting a completely empty one.
- [Compaction](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/compaction): Shrinking a long session by replacing its history with a summary and carrying on from that summary in a fresh context window.
- [Handoff](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/handoff): Passing work from one session to the next, or from one agent to another, so the new one can continue without the full history.
- [Memory system](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/memory-system): A setup that tries to give an agent memory across sessions by saving notes to files or a database and loading them back when a new session…
- [Stateless](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/stateless): Describes something that keeps nothing between uses.
- [Attention degradation](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/attention-degradation): The drop in an agent's sharpness as a session gets long.
- [Smart zone](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/smart-zone): A name for the early part of a session, when an agent is focused and accurate.
- [Autocompact](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/autocompact): Compaction that the agent's software starts on its own when the context window is nearly full.
- [Subagent](https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/subagent): A second agent that the main agent starts to handle one piece of a job in its own separate session.

Map view: https://ecosystem.samcarlton.com/session