handoff

A command that saves a short, readable summary of the current conversation to a Markdown file. Markdown is plain text with simple formatting.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to record the current project state, shipped work, deferred decisions, and ideas in a portable handoff note.
Why use it?
It lets another person, computer, or fresh chat continue the work without replaying the entire conversation.

Command

Part of the session-continuity plugin — 2 commands shipped together

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add commands/cwakim/claude-plugins/handoff
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/cwakim/claude-plugins

Or install session-continuity, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 2 commands.

Per session 34 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 2,609 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan B 1 finding. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00034 $0.02609
Opus 5 $0.00017 $0.01305
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00522
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00261

Measured 2d ago against content hash cb450f92e14e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

handoff scanned grade B with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Reads agent configuration directoriesmediumAgent snooping

.claude/, .codex/, .gemini/ hold keys, settings and other credentials a mod has no legitimate need for.

So a fresh session in any directory can find this handoff, prepend one line to `~/.claude/handoff-index.md` (create the file and `~/.claude/` if needed):
plugins/session-continuity/commands/handoff.md · 136 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 136 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Handoff

Distill the current conversation into a compact, portable markdown snapshot and write it to a file.

This is not a context restore. Unlike resuming a session (which replays the whole raw transcript), a handoff is a deliberate, lossy summary: the substance, not the noise. The goal is that a fresh session, a different machine, or a human contributor can continue from a single readable page instead of rehydrating a long, messy thread.

It is also not a log of past sessions. A handoff is a living current-state note for an ongoing thread: what the thing is, where it stands right now, what shipped, what was deliberately held back and why. When you handoff again on the same thread, you update that one page in place to match reality. You do not stack a new dated entry on top. The file should always read as "here is the state now," roughly one screen, never a diary of everything that ever happened.

Arguments ($ARGUMENTS)

Parse optional arguments, in any order:

  • A path (anything containing / or ending in .md) → the destination file. Expand a leading ~. Examples: ~/Desktop/auth-refactor.md, notes/that-chat.md.
  • The word ideas (or capture) → use the idea-capture template instead of the default work template.
  • The word archive (optionally followed by a thread name) → retire a finished thread: move its note into an archive folder and clear it out of the active handoff. This follows the Archive mode section below instead of Steps 1-5.
  • No path given → default to .claude/handoff.md in the current working directory (create .claude/ if needed).
  • No mode word given → use the work template.

Step 1: Choose the template

Work template (default, for resuming a task):

# <thread name> — working state (updated YYYY-MM-DD)

## Goal
The overarching objective, 1-3 sentences.

## Status now
Where the thread stands right now: what's live, what's in progress, which
files / branches are in play. Cite ground truth (branch names, commit hashes,
file paths) rather than re-describing code that the repo already holds.

## Shipped, watch for
Things built and pushed that may still need fixes: name the change and the
suspected weak spot, so a follow-up knows where to look. Omit the heading if empty.

## Held back (and why)
Anything deliberately NOT done yet (not pushed to prod, parked on a branch,
deferred), each with the reason. This is the context that is easy to lose.
Omit the heading if empty.

## Decided (don't revisit)
Choices made and the one-line reason: "chose A over B because ...". This is
what stops a fresh session from relitigating settled questions. Omit the
heading if empty.

## Next / blocked
The immediate next step, or the exact thing we are stuck on. Be specific.

## Constraints
Session-specific gotchas still in effect (see the note below).

_As of branch `<branch>` @ `<short sha>`, <clean tree | dirty: N files>. Session `<session id>`._

Read the full file on GitHub · 136 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 136 lines · 34 tokens per session scan B cb450f92e14e

Subscribe to this mod's changes

handoff is a command published in the GitHub repository cwakim/claude-plugins (2 stars, last pushed 12d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 34 tokens to every session and 2,609 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it B with 1 finding (reads agent configuration directories). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.