Switching coding agents shouldn't mean starting over — but for most teams it does, because the context lived in the agent, not the repo. Here's how to migrate without losing the project's memory.
The pain of migrating between coding agents — Claude Code to Codex, Cursor to Gemini — isn't the agent switch. It's that the project's context lived in the agent's chat, not in the repo, and switching agents means re-establishing it from zero.
First Things: Context in the Repo, Not the Chat
Begin with the end in mind: the project's context — the architecture, the conventions, the decisions, the in-progress state — lives in the repo, not in the agent's chat. A migration between agents is then a switch, not a restart, because the context is portable.
- Architecture docs in the repo.
- Conventions and decisions documented.
- In-progress state captured in the repo, not the chat.
- The agent inherits the repo, not the other way around.
The Migration Checklist
- **Context in the repo.** The docs, the conventions, the decisions — all in the repo, not the chat.
- **A shared control plane.** A log that spans agents, so the migration carries the session history.
- **A small first task.** The first task in the new agent is small, so you can confirm it inherits the context.
- **A rollback.** If the new agent doesn't fit, you can go back without losing the work.
What to Refuse
- A migration that assumes the new agent will "pick up" the context (it won't, unless it's in the repo).
- A migration with no rollback.
- A migration that throws away the old agent's log.
- A migration done on a large task first.
The Story That Makes Migration Safe
The story is the repo carrying the context. A team that can switch agents because the context is in the repo is a team that's not held hostage by any one agent — and that's the team that can adopt the right tool for each job, instead of the tool it's locked into.
How FACTA Frames It
FACTA's NEST is the control plane that makes the migration safe — one Rust server, one log, every coding agent accountable to it. The context lives in the repo and the control plane; the agent is the worker, not the memory. A migration is then a switch, not a restart.
Conclusion
Migrating between coding agents without losing context means the context lives in the repo and a shared control plane, not in the agent's chat. Migrate with the repo carrying the memory, a small first task, and a rollback — and the switch is a switch, not a restart.
About FACTA
FACTA helps startups and growth-stage teams turn AI into production systems that keep running — not demos that impress once.
We design the architecture around the parts that actually break under real usage: tooling you own, credentials you control, failover, cost controls, observability. The boring infrastructure that keeps a system alive after launch.
Led by Matías Baglieri and Carolina Fogliato, we focus on one thing:
AI leadership that builds. Not just advises.
Tell us which agent you're migrating to.
We'll tell you what to put in the repo first so you don't start from zero. See the NEST control plane for the shared-log side.
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