A long session with a coding agent often reaches a point where it stops making progress. It tries the same fix twice, undoes its own change, or keeps defending an approach you already said was wrong. At that point there are two options. You can keep steering: explain the problem again, point at the right file, narrow the task. Or you can end the session and start a fresh one with a short summary of what you learned.
Steering keeps everything the agent has already read, including the parts it got right. Starting over drops the wrong assumptions along with the useful context, and the agent has to read the code again. In Claude Code and other terminal agents, both are a few keystrokes away, so the choice comes down to judgment, not effort.
We want to know how you make that call:
- What signal tells you a session is beyond saving?
- When you start fresh, what do you carry over: a summary, a plan file, nothing?
- Do you have a rule of thumb, such as a number of failed attempts before you reset?
Share the signal you trust in the comments below, even if it is just a gut feeling.
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