Sessions, branches, and rewind

A session holds a conversation and its saved state. Use separate sessions for independent tasks and branches when you want to explore alternatives from an existing conversation.

Find and resume work

You can also select a session when launching:

qwen --continue
qwen --resume '<session-id>'
qwen --list-sessions
qwen --name "API migration"

In the session browser, follow the on-screen project, branch, and worktree filters if an expected session is missing. Start in the relevant project directory. A custom --config-dir can change which user data is available.

qwen --delete-session <index> deletes a saved session using its listed index. List sessions immediately before selecting an index. Deleting a transcript does not revert the code changes made during that session.

Branch a conversation

After at least one visible conversation message, run:

/branch Alternative implementation

This creates a new session from the current conversation and switches into it. The command reports how to resume the original. Branching copies conversation state, including available runtime preferences and workspace information; it does not create a separate Git branch or filesystem copy. In an existing worktree, the branched conversation stays attached to that worktree.

At startup, qwen --resume <session-id> --fork-session creates a new session from a resumed conversation. Use a worktree when alternatives also need separate working files.

Rewind

/rewind (alias /checkpoint) opens the rewind selector. Select a point, then inspect the available restoration options: conversation, files, or both. The confirmation view explains the file changes that can be restored and any files without usable backups.

Rewind is limited to available file history. Files edited manually or through shell commands may not be restored. Conversation-only rewind leaves files as they are; file restoration can overwrite later edits. Review the preview and keep Git commits or backups for changes you need to preserve. Rewind does not undo external actions such as a deployment or a sent request.

Export and persistence

Use /export to save a readable conversation. An export is for review and sharing; it is not a replacement for the saved session format used by /resume.

For non-interactive work, --no-session-persistence works with --print and prevents the session from being saved for later resumption:

qwen --print --no-session-persistence "Summarize the project structure"

This option concerns session persistence; it does not promise that no diagnostic logs or other application data are written.