Never lose a half-written prompt again. Ctrl+S saves your draft. Send something else. Come back. It's still there.
You're three paragraphs into describing a complex refactoring task. The context is perfect. You've explained the legacy code structure, the business requirements, the constraints, and you're just about to describe what you want Claude to do when—
Ping. Your tech lead needs an answer about that production incident. Right now.
In the old days, you had two terrible options: finish your prompt and make them wait, or abandon your carefully crafted context and deal with it later. Option two usually meant copying your draft to a scratchpad (if you remembered), or worse, losing it entirely and trying to recreate your train of thought from memory.
Today, we're talking about a feature so simple it feels like it should have always existed: Prompt Stashing.
The Problem
Context is everything in software development. When you're writing a complex prompt, you're not just typing words — you're constructing a mental model and transferring it to Claude. That takes effort. That takes time. That takes focus.
Interruptions don't care about your focus. They come regardless:
- A Slack DM that needs immediate attention
- A quick question from a teammate
- A sudden realization that you need to check something first
- Your brain deciding to ask an unrelated question that just popped up
Before prompt stashing, every interruption created a dilemma:
The copy-paste dance: Copy your draft to Notes/Notepad/Obsidian, handle the interruption, then paste it back. Clunky and error-prone.
The "I'll remember it" gamble: Switch contexts, handle the urgent thing, and trust your memory. Spoiler: your memory is lying to you.
The reluctant send: Just send your incomplete prompt and hope Claude figures it out. Usually results in answers that miss the point.
None of these are good. All of them cost you time and mental energy.
The Solution
Prompt Stashing is Claude Code's answer to the interruption problem. One keystroke saves your draft. Handle whatever you need to handle. Your draft auto-restores when you're ready.
How to Use It
Saving your draft:
Ctrl+S
That's it. Whatever you've typed — whether it's two words or two paragraphs — is now safely stashed.
What happens next:
- Your input field clears
- You handle your interruption (send a different prompt, ask a quick question, whatever)
- When you're done and the input field is empty again, your stashed draft automatically restores
There's no "unstash" command. No menu to navigate. No additional keystrokes. It just... comes back.
The Flow in Action
Let's walk through a real scenario:
You're typing:
"I need to refactor our authentication middleware. Currently it's
checking permissions in three different places: the route handler,
the service layer, and the database query. I want to consolidate
this into a single permission check that—"
*Urgent Slack message arrives*
*You press Ctrl+S*
*Your draft is stashed*
*Input field clears*
You type and send:
"Quick question — what's the correct way to handle JWT expiration
in Express middleware?"
*Claude answers*
*You're done with the interruption*
*Your input field is empty*
*MAGIC: Your original draft automatically reappears*
"I need to refactor our authentication middleware. Currently it's
checking permissions in three different places: the route handler,
the service layer, and the database query. I want to consolidate
this into a single permission check that—"
You continue exactly where you left off.
Pro Tips
🎯 Tip 1: Make Ctrl+S a reflex. Before handling any interruption, Ctrl+S. Even if you're not sure you'll need it. It costs nothing, and it saves everything.
🎯 Tip 2: Use it for "wait, I need to check something first." Mid-prompt, you realize you need to verify something in your codebase. Ctrl+S, ask Claude the clarifying question, get your answer, then continue your original prompt with fresh info.
🎯 Tip 3: Think of it as a one-slot clipboard. It holds one draft at a time. If you stash something new, the old stash is replaced. (This is usually what you want.)
🎯 Tip 4: Combine with named sessions. Stash handles within-session interruptions. Named sessions (Day 11) handle between-session context. Together, you never lose context at any level.
Real-World Use Case
Let's follow Jamie, a full-stack developer working on a complex data migration.
9:47 AM: Jamie starts crafting a detailed prompt about migrating user data from MongoDB to PostgreSQL. They've typed three paragraphs explaining the schema differences, the transformation rules, and the edge cases.
9:48 AM: Team standup starts in 2 minutes. Jamie needs to quickly check yesterday's deployment status.
Old Jamie: Would copy the draft to a sticky note, forget about it, and spend 10 minutes after standup trying to reconstruct the prompt.
Prompt Stash Jamie:
- Hits Ctrl+S
- Types: "What did we deploy yesterday and were there any issues?"
- Gets a quick summary
- Standup happens
- Returns to Claude Code
- Draft is waiting, exactly as left
9:52 AM: During standup, someone mentions a bug in the user profile endpoint.
Back in Claude Code:
- Jamie's migration prompt is there
- But wait — maybe they should fix that bug first?
- Ctrl+S again (stashing the migration prompt)
- Quick conversation about the bug
- Bug fixed
- Migration prompt auto-restores
Total context lost: Zero.
Time spent on context recovery: Zero.
Mental energy spent remembering drafts: Zero.
The Psychology Behind It
There's a reason this feature feels so good: it eliminates a category of low-grade stress you didn't even know you were carrying.
Every time you write a complex prompt, there's a small part of your brain standing guard: "Don't lose this. Don't lose this. Don't lose this." It's cognitive overhead. It reduces your ability to focus on the actual problem.
Prompt Stashing is the developer equivalent of knowing your work is saved. It's the peace of mind that comes from git commits. It's the same reason autosave changed how we use document editors.
You can take risks. You can follow tangents. You can handle interruptions. Your draft is safe.
Conclusion
Some features are flashy. Prompt Stashing is not flashy. It's a single keyboard shortcut that does exactly what you expect.
But the impact? It's the difference between a tool that fights your workflow and a tool that adapts to it. It's the difference between losing thoughts and keeping them. It's one less thing to worry about in a profession that gives you plenty to worry about already.
Ctrl+S. Handle your interruption. Come back. Continue.
Simple. Reliable. Essential.
Tomorrow in Day 14: Your terminal. Your rules. We're exploring /statusline — Claude Code's customizable status bar that can show git info, tokens, weather, or literally anything else you want. Make it yours. 📊
Did Prompt Stashing save your drafts? Follow along for the rest of the 31 Days of Claude Code Features!
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