Stop hook crashes with 'Transcript path missing' after context compaction

[tsa-logisoft]

Bug

The summarize stop hook throws an unhandled error when the session transcript .jsonl file referenced in a compacted context no longer exists:

Hook error: Error: Transcript path missing or file does not exist: C:\Users\...\<session-id>.jsonl

Root Cause

In scripts/worker-service.cjs, the Cq() function throws instead of returning gracefully when the transcript file is missing or empty:

// Current (throws):
function Cq(t,e,r=!1){
  if(!t||!(0,uv.existsSync)(t))
    throw new Error(`Transcript path missing or file does not exist: ${t}`);
  let n=(0,uv.readFileSync)(t,"utf-8").trim();
  if(!n)
    throw new Error(`Transcript file exists but is empty: ${t}`);
  ...
}

When It Happens

1. A long session gets context-compacted by Claude Code.
2. The compacted summary embeds the original session's .jsonl transcript path.
3. When the next session ends, the stop hook tries to read that old transcript path — but the file no longer exists (it may be in a different project directory, or was cleaned up).
4. The throw surfaces as a visible hook error to the user.

Suggested Fix

Return the empty result instead of throwing — the same shape the function returns in its happy path:

function Cq(t,e,r=!1){
  if(!t||!(0,uv.existsSync)(t))
    return{userMessage:"",assistantMessage:""};
  let n=(0,uv.readFileSync)(t,"utf-8").trim();
  if(!n)
    return{userMessage:"",assistantMessage:""};
  ...
}

This makes the hook silently skip summarization for missing/empty transcripts rather than surfacing an error to the user.

Environment

• claude-mem version: 9.1.1
• Platform: Windows 11
• Triggered by: worktree-based Claude Code sessions with context compaction

[hatawong]

I ran into the same problem building a different memory tool. After compaction, the JSONL transcript path can be stale or missing, and any hook that assumes it exists will crash.

What worked for me:

1. Check for a .compacted marker before attempting to read the transcript. If the session was compacted, the JSONL may be incomplete or the path may have changed.

2. Graceful fallback — if the transcript is missing, skip the extraction rather than throwing. The summary will be lower quality (or absent), but at least the hook doesn't crash and block the session.

3. Continuous capture instead of end-of-session extraction — the Stop hook writes topic summaries while the agent still has context, so by the time compaction happens, most topics are already archived. The cold-read path from JSONL is only a fallback for the current topic that was in progress when compaction fired.

The core issue is that compaction invalidates assumptions about transcript availability. Any hook that reads transcripts needs to treat the file as "maybe there, maybe not" rather than "guaranteed to exist."