manastalukdar/ai-devstudio/handoff

Handoff

Write a handoff document summarising the current conversation so a fresh agent can continue the work.

Usage

/handoff
/handoff "focus on the auth module next"

If arguments are passed, treat them as a description of what the next session will focus on and tailor the document accordingly.

Output location

Save to the temporary directory of the user's OS — not the current workspace. Resolve from $TMPDIR, falling back to /tmp (or %TEMP% on Windows). Name it handoff-<timestamp>.md.

Tell the user the absolute path.

Document contents

Include:

• Current state: what has been decided, built, or discovered
• Next steps: what the next session should do first
• Context pointers: paths or URLs to existing artifacts (specs, plans, ADRs, issues, commits, diffs) — do NOT duplicate their content; reference by path or URL instead
• Suggested skills: which skills the next agent should call the Skill tool for (e.g. grilling, tdd, code-review)
• Open questions: decisions still pending
• Redacted secrets: redact any sensitive information (API keys, passwords, PII) — write <REDACTED> in its place

Format

# Handoff: <brief description of the work>
 
**Generated**: <ISO timestamp>
**Next session focus**: <from arguments, or "continue from where we left off">
 
## Current state
 
<what has been decided and done>
 
## Context pointers
 
-Spec: <path or URL>
-Open tickets: <path or URL>
-Recent commits: <branch and hash range>
 
## Next steps
 
1.<first thing to do>
2.<second thing to do>
 
## Suggested skills
 
-`/grilling` — to sharpen <X>
-`/tdd` — to implement <Y>
 
## Open questions
 
-<decision still pending>

When to use

Use /handoff narrowly: for a new harness, a new directory, a colleague, or forking a side task mid-phase. What it buys is portability.

If you're staying in the same harness and nothing here matters to what's next, /clear is cheaper. If you want to compress context and continue in the same session, use /compact instead.

Token Optimization

Expected range: 200–600 tokens (reads conversation context + writes one file; no codebase exploration needed)

Patterns used: Early exit (stateless write — no file reads required unless referencing specific artifacts)

Ported from [mattpocock/skills](https://github.com/mattpocock/skills) with attribution.