kanso-handoff

kanso-handoff is a skill for Claude Code from blakecyze/kanso. It costs 86 tokens per session (932 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A session handoff skill that writes the current work context to `.claude/handoff.md` and prints a line for resuming it later. It replaces the previous handoff file rather than keeping a history.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it before clearing a session or switching to a new one when you want the next agent session to continue the same work.
Why use it?
It prevents losing the task state, decisions, and verification details when a coding session is cleared or ends. The next session can use the file instead of reconstructing the context.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: allowed-tools in frontmatter. Also seen: mentions CLAUDE.md; mentions AGENTS.md.

Part of the kanso plugin — 11 skills, 1 hook shipped together

Good fit Use it before clearing a session or switching to a new one when you want the next agent session to continue the same work.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/blakecyze/kanso/kanso-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 blakecyze/kanso --skill kanso-handoff
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/blakecyze/kanso

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install kanso, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 11 skills, 1 hook.

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 kanso-handoff

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/blakecyze/kanso/kanso-handoff/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/blakecyze/kanso/kanso-handoff)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/blakecyze/kanso/kanso-handoff"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/blakecyze/kanso/kanso-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 kanso-handoff

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/blakecyze/kanso/kanso-handoff"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/blakecyze/kanso/kanso-handoff.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 86 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 932 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 $0.00086 $0.00932
Opus 5 $0.00043 $0.00466
Sonnet 5 $0.00017 $0.00186
Haiku 4.5 $0.00009 $0.00093

Measured 5d ago against content hash 68db15ba0c73, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-10, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

kanso-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 5d 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.

skills/kanso-handoff/SKILL.md · 62 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 62 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

kanso-handoff

Packages what this session knows into .claude/handoff.md so /clear costs nothing. The file is a baton, not a log: each run overwrites the last, the next session reads it and continues, and nothing else is kept.

The audience is the next agent session, not a person. Density beats politeness; a fact the next session must not re-derive beats a paragraph about how it was derived. Everything in kanso-principles about earning lines applies double here, because every line of the handoff is paid for at the start of every future turn.

What goes in

Header first, one line: date, branch, HEAD short sha. The next session diffs against this to detect drift since the handoff.

Then these sections, each optional, each tight. $ARGUMENTS may narrow the pack to one strand of a mixed session.

Section Holds Rule
Goal The task, one or two sentences, user's point of view Present tense, no history
State Done and verified / done but unverified / not started Verified means a command ran and passed, nothing softer
Decisions Each with its one-line reason A decision without the why gets re-litigated next session
Files Load-bearing paths, one line each Repo-relative; say what each is, not what happened to it
Open threads Numbered next steps, most important first Imperative, self-contained
Dead ends What was tried and abandoned, and why Saves the next session from retrying it
Verify Exact commands with expected outcomes Runnable as written

What stays out

  • Transcript narration. "We then discussed" is the failure mode; the next session was not there and does not care.
  • Anything git already records. The diff is in git; the handoff carries what the diff cannot say.
  • Secrets, always. No tokens, keys, or credentials, even when they appeared in the session. Name where a secret lives (op://..., an env var) rather than what it is.
  • Unfounded certainty. Anything not verified is written as unverified.
  • Durable knowledge. Repo guidance belongs in AGENTS.md via kanso-context; solved-problem notes belong to a memory tool. The handoff dies at the next overwrite.

Read the full file on GitHub · 62 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. 5d ago First seen · 62 lines · 86 tokens per session scan A 68db15ba0c73

Subscribe to this mod's changes

kanso-handoff is a skill published in the GitHub repository blakecyze/kanso (3 stars, last pushed 7d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 86 tokens to every session and 932 once invoked, about $0.0004 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 2026-09-05.

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