What
--continue and --resume reopen an earlier conversation. When starting one of these fails with a particular kind of error, Claude Code now stops with that error's own message instead of a generic failure.
- In the normal interactive mode, that error exits with its own message. Before, every failure was recorded as the same generic launch failure.
- In print mode (
claude -p), the error is printed and Claude Code exits with code 1. A failed resume of this kind is marked as aborted. Before, the error was logged and an empty conversation was returned. - A new check runs before the stored session is looked up.
Why
You see why a resume failed. Scripts using claude -p --continue or --resume now get a non-zero exit code they can detect, instead of silently carrying on with an empty conversation.
Names in the bundle--continue--resume
The entry above is what we published on the day. These lines were added later, as Anthropic's own pages caught up, and they sit beside the original rather than replacing it.
Added since
A small documentation edit on Tools reference touched a line naming --continue after this was published.
In [non-interactive mode](/docs/en/headless) with `-p` and in the [Agent SDK](/docs/en/agent-sdk/overview), the limit applies per turn, not per session. A turn lasts from a message you send until Claude finishes responding. The limit reset…tools-reference see the edit
Confirmed since
Anthropic's documentation has since written up --continue, on Agent SDK reference - TypeScript.
Schedules a prompt to run on a 5-field cron schedule in local time. Set `recurring` to `false` to fire once at the next match. Jobs are session-scoped by default, and resuming with `--resume` or `--continue` restores jobs that haven't expi…agent-sdk/typescript see the edit
Confirmed since
Anthropic's documentation has since written up --resume, on Claude Code changelog.
* Fixed `claude --help` text for `--tools`, `--resume`, `--debug`, `--json-schema`, `--disable-slash-commands`, `--system-prompt-snapshot` and `claude update` to match actual behaviorchangelog see the edit
Added since
A small documentation edit on Manage sessions touched a line naming --resume after this was published.
* Default display name: interactive sessions you never name still get a default display name when they start. The default combines the working directory's name with a two-character suffix, for example `my-app-3f`, and identifies the sessio…sessions see the edit
One source agreesOne thing we can check says the same as this entry.
Anthropic's documentation agrees
A small documentation edit on Manage sessions touched a line naming --resume after this was published.