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A task’s session is the thing Cogno actually moves around: the agent runs it on a machine, and you can pick that same session up in your own terminal — history, plan, and working directory intact. This page shows how to take a task over, and how to stop a live run to take it over. Everything here lives on one line at the foot of the right rail of the task detail, labelled Session: the machine holding the task on the left, the way into it on the right. It never hides — picking the work up is always available.

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Prerequisites

  • A task whose work is bound to an execution environment — that’s the machine and directory the CLI runs in. Without one, the terminal controls don’t appear.
  • The engine the task ran in — Claude Code or Codex — installed on that machine. Cogno offers only the engine the task actually ran in.
  • The Cogno desktop app to open a terminal directly. On the web you copy the command and run it yourself.

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Read the session line

The Session line names who is driving right now.

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Open the session in your terminal

1

Open the task

Open the task and find the Session line in the right rail.
2

Select the CLI button

In the desktop app, select Resume in Claude CLI or Resume in Codex CLI. When the task has no saved session to resume yet, the same button reads Open in Claude CLI / Open in Codex CLI. Cogno opens your own Terminal — never an in-app one — in the task’s working directory.
3

Or copy the command

Select Copy command to put the command on your clipboard instead, then paste it into any terminal. On the web this is the only option. The button confirms with Copied; if the browser blocks the clipboard you’ll see Could not copy to clipboard.
The command is never printed in the app — it only lands on your clipboard. It changes directory into the task’s bound directory and starts the engine, resuming the saved session when there is one:

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Cogno tracks the session, so the task stays honest

Opening the terminal — or copying the command — first registers the session with Cogno. That registration is what keeps the board truthful: In Progress holds only queued or running work, and an open terminal you’re driving is running work. Registering the session:
  • Moves the task to In Progress.
  • Records a run with no worker on it — you’re the one running it, so no machine claims it and no automatic executor picks it up.
  • Blocks a second run from starting on the same task while yours is open.
Terminals you open outside Cogno are deliberately not tracked. Only the buttons on this line — and Open in terminal in the How should this move forward? dialog — register a session. A task that is already Done or Archived registers nothing; the terminal still opens.

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Finish or discard a tracked session

While a tracked session is open, the task rail shows In progress in a manual session with the hint This task is being driven from a terminal session. Finish to deliver, or discard to stop tracking it. After Finish and deliver, when the session can still be resumed, Cogno asks Reflect what happened in this session into the description? — choose Reflect it to have an agent write the session back into the task description, or Not now.

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Take over a run that’s already going

Resuming a session that an agent is actively writing would put two agents on the same task. So while a run is in flight the terminal buttons are replaced by a single one:
1

Select Stop & take over in CLI

The button arms itself and reads Click again to stop the run and take over. It disarms on its own after five seconds if you don’t confirm.
2

Confirm

Select it again. Cogno stops the running agent — the button reads Stopping the run… — and waits for the run to actually finish.
3

Keep working

As soon as the run reaches its end, your terminal opens on the same session, with its context intact, and the takeover is registered as your session.
Stop-and-take-over needs the desktop app, because it ends by opening your native terminal. On the web, the terminal controls reappear once the run finishes.

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Pass the session to a teammate

There’s no separate hand-off button — reassign the task to them from the assignee picker on the task. They pick the session up from their own terminal exactly as described above, and if a run is still in flight they stop and take it over.

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Reference

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Where the terminal controls appear

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When each button shows

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Troubleshooting

For anything not listed here, see Troubleshooting.