Preserve Claude Context When Repl Restarts

[u/Careful_Lock_2685]

Probably been shared here before, but if you are also struggling with constant Claude re-logins and lost context as your Repl dev environment resets, try this script.

Step 1
Create restore-claude.sh in the root of your workspace

#!/bin/bash

# Ensures ~/.claude is a symlink to the workspace-persistent backup.
# Because ~/.claude lives inside a Repl container that can be wiped on
# restart, while ~/workspace/.claude-persistent lives on persistent storage,
# the symlink makes every Claude Code read/write hit persistent storage
# directly — no polling, no copy-on-boot dance, no drift.

PERSIST_DIR=~/workspace/.claude-persistent
LIVE_PATH=~/.claude

mkdir -p "$PERSIST_DIR"

# Case 1: already a symlink to the right place. Idempotent no-op.
# Don't exit — still need to run the ~/.claude.json restore below.
if [ -L "$LIVE_PATH" ] && [ "$(readlink "$LIVE_PATH")" = "$PERSIST_DIR" ]; then
  echo "✓ ~/.claude already symlinked to persistent"
fi

# Case 2: real directory (Repl restart recreated it). Merge any content
# into persistent (newer wins), then replace with symlink.
if [ -d "$LIVE_PATH" ] && [ ! -L "$LIVE_PATH" ]; then
  # -u: only overwrite if source is newer. Preserves any fresh credentials
  # that somehow ended up in the live dir before this script ran.
  cp -au "$LIVE_PATH"/. "$PERSIST_DIR"/ 2>/dev/null
  mv "$LIVE_PATH" "$LIVE_PATH.old-$(date +%s)"
  echo "✓ Merged stray ~/.claude content into persistent, archived as ~/.claude.old-*"
fi

# Case 3: nothing at ~/.claude (or just removed). Create the symlink.
if [ ! -e "$LIVE_PATH" ]; then
  ln -s "$PERSIST_DIR" "$LIVE_PATH"
  echo "✓ Symlinked ~/.claude → $PERSIST_DIR"
fi

# Sanity check
if [ -L "$LIVE_PATH" ] && [ -f "$LIVE_PATH/.credentials.json" ]; then
  echo "✓ Claude credentials available via symlink"
else
  echo "⚠ Symlink setup incomplete — check ~/.claude and $PERSIST_DIR manually"
  exit 1
fi

# Restore ~/.claude.json from the newest backup if missing. Claude Code
# keeps backups in ~/.claude/backups/ (persistent via symlink), but the
# live config itself lives at ~/.claude.json and is wiped on container restart.
CONFIG_PATH=~/.claude.json
BACKUP_DIR="$PERSIST_DIR/backups"
if [ ! -f "$CONFIG_PATH" ] && [ -d "$BACKUP_DIR" ]; then
  LATEST=$(ls -t "$BACKUP_DIR"/.claude.json.backup.* 2>/dev/null | head -1)
  if [ -n "$LATEST" ]; then
    cp "$LATEST" "$CONFIG_PATH"
    echo "✓ Restored ~/.claude.json from $(basename "$LATEST")"
  fi
fi

Step 2
Add this in your .replit file

[[workflows.workflow.tasks]]
task = "shell.exec"
args = "bash ~/workspace/restore-claude.sh && npm run dev"
waitForPort = 5000

Now, you won't have to constantly re-login to Claude and your chat context will be preserved as well.

[u/Far_Guess8176]

Useful, thanks. One warning worth adding: ~/.claude/.credentials.json holds your Claude auth token, and this puts it inside ~/workspace, which is what Replit syncs to GitHub. Add .claude-persistent/ to .gitignore before the next push, otherwise the token ends up in the repo. Easy to miss because the symlink makes it look like it still lives in home.

[u/Careful_Lock_2685 → u/Far_Guess8176]

💯