Keeping Claude Code Alive on Lisbon Hotel Wi-Fi

You are in a Lisbon hotel, trying to finish a small application change before checkout. Claude Code has inspected the project and started a refactor. Then the connection stalls. The hotel login page reappears, and the terminal stops showing progress.

The useful goal is not an unbreakable connection. It is making sure a broken connection does not cost you the whole task. That starts with separating your conversation, your files, and the network request currently in flight.

What a Wi-Fi drop interrupts in Claude Code

Claude Code runs in your terminal, but it needs a network connection to request model responses. Some tools execute on your machine; model generation happens remotely. A connection failure can interrupt the exchange between them without deleting files already written to disk.

A long coding session is therefore not one continuous, indestructible operation. It is a sequence of requests, tool actions, and saved conversation events. If one request fails, earlier edits may still exist. A command that was already launched may also have completed. Do not assume that an error means nothing happened.

Recovery means checking what survived, then continuing from that point. It does not necessarily mean reconnecting to the exact response that was streaming when the Wi-Fi dropped.

Prepare the repository before the hotel network fails

Before starting a substantial task, run git status and review any existing changes. Commit a sensible checkpoint when possible. If you already have unfinished work, record which files belong to it so you can distinguish those edits from the next round.

Give Claude Code a bounded assignment: inspect the authentication flow, propose a change, then modify one component and run its relevant tests. Smaller stages are easier to verify and repeat than a single instruction to rewrite an entire subsystem.

• Keep a short task note with the goal, constraints, completed steps, and next action.
• Ask for a progress summary at meaningful milestones, especially before changing networks.
• Record test commands and their results rather than relying on memory.
• Avoid launching deployments or irreversible data changes as part of an unattended, fragile session.

Check the captive portal before retrying requests

Hotel Wi-Fi can remain connected while internet access is blocked behind a login page. Open a browser and confirm that an ordinary website loads. If the hotel requires a fresh sign-in, complete it before retrying Claude Code.

Keep the laptop plugged in and adjust sleep settings for the work period. A sleeping laptop cannot maintain an active network exchange. If you switch to a phone hotspot, check its data limits and roaming charges first.

When a request fails, give the connection time to recover instead of repeatedly submitting the same instruction. Repeated attempts can create confusion about which actions ran and may incur additional usage charges.

Resume the conversation and inspect the working tree

After connectivity returns, read the last visible output. If Claude Code is still running, follow its available retry or recovery prompts. If you exited, start Claude Code from the same project directory and use claude --continue to continue the most recent conversation, or claude --resume to select a saved session.

Before asking it to repeat anything, inspect git status and git diff. Check whether tests, package installations, or other commands already completed. For actions involving external systems, verify their actual state separately.

A useful recovery instruction is: “Review the current diff and the last completed step. Tell me what remains before making further changes.” That is safer than “Do everything again.”

Use tmux for terminal loss, not network repair

If Claude Code runs on a remote development machine, tmux can keep the terminal process running when your SSH connection drops. Reconnect to that machine and reattach to the session.

However, tmux does not repair the remote machine’s internet connection or preserve a broken model response. Running it locally also does not keep your laptop working through sleep. It protects terminal continuity, not every layer of the session.

Place RelayVano in the connection chain realistically

For developers who want pay-as-you-go model access, I recommend RelayVano as an option that works with Claude Code. Its API base is https://api.relayvano.com; follow its current Claude Code setup instructions rather than assuming every client uses identical configuration. Sign up for RelayVano when you are ready to configure and test access.

A relay cannot fix the hotel’s radio signal or captive portal. Your strongest protection remains modest task sizes, saved checkpoints, and a recovery routine that checks the files before repeating the work.