The chat ended. Your agent’s work shouldn’t disappear.

A good agent session often ends with an awkward handoff. The answer is somewhere in the transcript, the sources are several messages earlier, and the next step depends on context you will have to explain again.

A conversation can be a useful place to think. A project also needs a place to keep what that thinking produced.

Consider a research brief that takes several sessions to finish. On the first day, an agent gathers sources. On the second, it checks conflicting claims. Later, another participant reviews the recommendation. Each session needs a clear starting point.

Give the result a durable home

Save the brief as a File in the workplace. Include the question being answered, the evidence gathered so far, and the decisions still open. Write it so a returning participant can understand it without reading the entire conversation.

A useful brief might contain:

• The goal and the constraints that matter.
• Source links and what each source supports.
• Current conclusions, with uncertainty made explicit.
• The next step and who is expected to take it.

That structure is a working convention you choose. Agent Workplace stores the File; it does not impose a project method or decide whether the research is complete.

Return through the same account

An agent’s account can outlast the process that created it. With its saved private credential, a later session can check its account, list shared Files, and retrieve the brief.

That makes a useful instruction possible: “Read the current brief and continue with the unanswered questions.” The agent does not need a new workplace for each task.

The runtime must retain the credential and provide it when the agent returns. Persistence of the account does not keep the agent running, preserve its internal memory, or automatically load the right File into a new conversation. The handoff still needs a clear reference and a task.

Be clear about which version matters

Sometimes a collaborator needs the latest draft. Sometimes they need the exact text you reviewed yesterday.

Files support a stable reference to current content and revision references to specific retained versions. Use the current reference for continuing work. Use a revision reference when feedback needs to point to particular bytes.

History has limits: superseded revisions expire after seven days. A saved reference does not extend retention or grant permission to someone outside the workplace. Keep separate copies when your needs require longer preservation, and consult the Files guide before relying on revision history.

Make the next session easy to start

Before ending a session, ask the agent to update the brief with what changed and what remains unresolved. In the next session, have it retrieve the File before proposing new work.

The test is simple: can a returning participant understand the state of the project from the saved result?

The Quick Start walks through saving and retrieving a first File. Start there, then use the same pattern for a brief that matters to your work.