handoff

handoff is a skill for Claude Code from 0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry. It costs 138 tokens per session (3,174 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A session wrap-up skill that creates a handoff document for the next coding-agent session. The document records pending work and other context in a defined format.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when ending a work session, preparing a topic for another agent, or responding to a request to create a handoff or summary.
Why use it?
It prevents important unfinished work and decisions from being lost when a session ends. The next agent can use the file to resume the task.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: PreCompact hook event.

Part of the builders-dont-cry plugin — 12 skills, 10 commands, 3 agents, 5 hooks shipped together

Good fit Use it when ending a work session, preparing a topic for another agent, or responding to a request to create a handoff or summary.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry/handoff
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.

Any agent
npx skills add 0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry --skill handoff
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install builders-dont-cry, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 12 skills, 10 commands, 3 agents, 5 hooks.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for handoff

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry/handoff/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry/handoff)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry/handoff"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry/handoff/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for handoff

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry/handoff"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry/handoff.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 138 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,174 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
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 5.1 $0.00138 $0.03174
Opus 5 $0.00069 $0.01587
Sonnet 5 $0.00028 $0.00635
Haiku 4.5 $0.00014 $0.00317

Measured 10d ago against content hash 2f95fdf04bcf, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

handoff scanned grade A with 0 findings 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 10d 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.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

core/skills/handoff/SKILL.md · 157 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 157 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

/handoff — Session handoff skill

Contract

One invocation produces:

  1. HANDOFF file — single per-topic task card at ${BDC_HOME:-$HOME/.bdc}/handoff/<topic-slug>.md, per § 1.4.2 of the canonical standard. Every file MUST carry kind: handoff in its frontmatter — this is the identity stamp /pickup uses to identify handoff files.
  2. Verbal report (4 lines, printed to chat) — what builder copy-pastes into the next session

Canonical specs (do not duplicate here):

  • HANDOFF schema → ${BDC_HOME:-$HOME/.bdc}/standards/ai-friendly-artifacts.md § 1.4.2
  • AI-friendly artifact shape → ${BDC_HOME:-$HOME/.bdc}/standards/ai-friendly-artifacts.md

Why one schema, not two: the previous design had a Schema A (<project>/HANDOFF.md, multi-branch index) alongside Schema B (this one). Schema A's per-branch sections required parsing markdown bodies (## {branch} headers, **Topic**: fields, fallback bullets) — fragile against any project that hand-wrote a HANDOFF.md with free-form ## sub-sections, which leaked into /pickup as ghost rows. The fix is to make identity explicit at write-time (kind: handoff stamp in frontmatter) and let /pickup trust the stamp instead of guessing structure.

This skill is the executor. To change format rules, edit the canonical doc, not this skill.

Phase 1 — Pick the topic file

Every session that touched code/config writes to one file: ${BDC_HOME:-$HOME/.bdc}/handoff/<topic-slug>.md.

  • Same topic, same file. Before writing, scan ${BDC_HOME:-$HOME/.bdc}/handoff/*.md for an existing topic match (frontmatter title or filename slug). If found → update in place. If not → create a new file ${BDC_HOME:-$HOME/.bdc}/handoff/<topic-slug>.md (slug only, no date prefix; date lives in frontmatter).
  • The slug should be a stable kebab-case identifier (e.g. launch-traffic-fix, pickup-display-bugs). Pick something that survives across sessions even if the headline phrasing changes.
  • Skip the handoff entirely for pure Q&A sessions with no code/config changes.

Read the full file on GitHub · 157 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. 10d ago First seen · 157 lines · 138 tokens per session scan A 2f95fdf04bcf

Subscribe to this mod's changes

handoff is a skill published in the GitHub repository 0xmariowu/builders-dont-cry (4 stars, last pushed 4mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 138 tokens to every session and 3,174 once invoked, about $0.0007 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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