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Term -- Session
Term -- Session

Session: An ephemeral Claude Code session that Gas Town throws at persistent work. Sessions are the "cattle" in the pets vs cattle metaphor — disposable and interchangeable. The persistent identity and state belong to the agent, not the session.

restart to stay in the smart zone?

Backlinks

Annotated version of 'Welcome to Gas Town'

In Gas Town, an Agent is not a session. Term -- Sessions are ephemeral; they are the “cattle” in the Kubernetes pets vs cattle metaphor. Claude Code sessions are the cattle that Gas Town throws at persistent work. That work all lives in Beads, along with the persistent identities of the workers, and the Town Mail, the event system, and even the ephemeral orchestration, as we will see.

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Glossary

Term Description Kind

self-handoff A worker slings work to a future version of itself, then restarts the Term -- Session concept

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Term -- Agent

Agent: A persistent worker identity in Gas Town. An agent is not a Term -- Session — it is the "pet" in the pets vs cattle metaphor. Agents have persistent identities stored as Agent Beads in Beads, and their work, mail, and state all live in Beads too.

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Term -- Swarm

ephemeral Agent Term -- Session taking on persistent work (like Molecules)

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Term -- self-handoff

A worker slings a future version of itself work, then restarts the Term -- Session.

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agent problem - Claude Code sessions crash

Term -- Sessions crash

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pets vs cattle

In Gas Town, agents are pets (persistent identities in Beads) while Term -- Session are cattle (ephemeral Claude Code sessions thrown at persistent work).

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restart to stay in the smart zone?

Why restart Term -- Sessions? It is not mentioned in the blog post, but the reason the Ralph loop starts fresh over-and-over is to stay in context window zone -- the smart zone. Perhaps for similar reasons?

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spaced repetition prompts - blog section 10 - Nondeterministic Idempotence

What happens when a new Term -- Session discovers the previous one crashed mid-step in a Molecule? ? It figures out the right fix, performs it, and moves on to the next step.

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spaced repetition prompts - blog section 14 - Convoys

What is a Swarm? ? Ephemeral Agent Term -- Sessions taking on persistent work.

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spaced repetition prompts - blog section 15 - Gas Town Workflow

What happens when a worker performs a handoff? ? It optionally sends itself work, then restarts its Term -- Session right there in tmux.

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spaced repetition prompts - blog section 17 - Comparison to Kubernetes

In Kubernetes, pods are anonymous cattle. What plays the "cattle" role in Gas Town? ? Term -- Session. Polecats are credited workers with persistent identities — it's their sessions that are disposable.

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spaced repetition prompts - blog section 4 - Gas Town 101

In Gas Town, which is more enduring... an agent or a Term -- Session? ? The agent. An agent is the persistent identity (the "pet"); a session is the ephemeral Claude Code process thrown at work (the "cattle"). Sessions come and go, but the agent endures.

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If a Claude Code session crashes mid-task, what survives — the agent or the session? ? The agent. Its identity, state, and work live in Beads. The Term -- Session is disposable cattle — just spin up another one.

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spaced repetition prompts - blog section 6 - Gastown Universal Propulsion Principle

In Gas Town, which is more enduring... an agent or a Term -- Session? ? The agent. An agent is the persistent identity (the "pet"); a session is the ephemeral Claude Code process thrown at work (the "cattle"). Sessions come and go, but the agent endures.
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pets vs cattle

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If a Claude Code session crashes mid-task, what survives — the agent or the session? ? The agent. Its identity, state, and work live in Beads. The Term -- Session is disposable cattle — just spin up another one.

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spaced repetition prompts - blog section 7 - The GUPP Nudge

What enables workers to continue molecules across Term -- Session? ? GUPP — as long as work is on their hook, any new session picks it up and continues.

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spaced repetition prompts - blog section 9 - Molecular Expression of Work (MEOW)

Why do Molecules survive agent crashes, compactions, and restarts? ? Because a molecule is a chain of Beads which is stored in Git. A new Term -- Session just finds its place in the molecule and picks up where the last one left off.

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Term -- SessionTerm -- Session

Term -- Session
Term -- Session