Context Bridge Documents

A context bridge is the document that connects one person's Claude session to another's. It is not a summary of the conversation — conversation summaries are lossy and format-dependent. It is a structured document designed specifically to be consumed by Claude as input to a new session.

The format matters because Claude processes structured documents more reliably than prose narratives. A context bridge uses sections with clear headers, bulleted lists for discrete items, and explicit labels for decision status (DECIDED, PENDING, REJECTED). When Bob's Claude session reads a context bridge from Alice, it does not have to interpret a narrative — it parses a structured document and knows exactly what has been established, what is still open, and what it needs to produce.

The context bridge should be generated by Claude at the end of the producing session, not written by the human. This is critical. When Alice finishes her research session, she tells Claude: "Generate a context bridge document for the person who will write the proposal based on this research. Include all five sections: findings, reasoning, decisions, constraints, and open questions." Claude produces the bridge from full session context — it has access to everything that was discussed, including the reasoning and rejected alternatives that Alice might forget to include in a manual summary.

The receiving person starts their session by uploading the context bridge and telling Claude: "Read this context bridge. It contains the research and decisions from the previous stage. Do not re-research topics that are marked DECIDED. Focus on the open questions and the deliverable I am about to describe." This instruction prevents Claude from second-guessing established decisions and focuses it on the new work.

# Context Bridge: [Project Name]
## Generated: [Date] | Source Session: [Person]

## Findings
- [Factual discovery with source]
- [Data point with context]

## Reasoning
- [Why finding X matters for this project]
- [Pattern identified across multiple findings]

## Decisions
- DECIDED: [Decision + rationale + rejected alternatives]
- DECIDED: [Decision + rationale]
- PENDING: [Decision needed + options under consideration]

## Constraints
- [Hard constraint: budget, timeline, legal, tone]
- [Stakeholder preference that must be respected]

## Open Questions
- [Question that needs more research or stakeholder input]
- [Ambiguity that the next session should resolve]