queue-handoff

Queue Handoff

Durable work handoff via queue items. Lets the system keep moving through compactions, missed messages, and interruptions by passing the ball forward instead of leaving work suspended in chat or in-flight without an owner.

Use this when

• Ending a turn on substantive work. Active work should end by passing the ball to an owner or to the human — never by going idle with the rig appearing dormant.
• Finishing a slice that has a clear next step. Default-nudge: receiver gets a wake-ping plus the durable queue item.
• Blocked on another agent's work. Park the qitem with closure_reason: blocked_on and the blocker qitem id.
• Escalating to the human. Make the escalation a durable attention item, not just a chat message.

Don't use this when

• The work is genuinely complete and there's no follow-on owner. Use closure_reason: no-follow-on (terminal completion) or canceled/denied as appropriate.
• The handoff would be too small and turn work into bureaucracy. Bundle the work into a coherent slice instead of decomposing every step.
• The handoff would be too broad and lose ownership/proof/closure criteria. Shape the qitem so the receiver knows the expected next action and closure evidence.

The hot-potato terminal-turn-rule

Active work ends by passing the ball to a named next owner or to the human. The qitem state machine enforces this:

pending → in-progress → done requires closure_reason from one of:

• handed_off_to — work continues at a different seat (target = new owner)
• blocked_on — parked pending another qitem (target = blocker qitem id)
• denied — receiver rejected the work
• canceled — sender or receiver withdrew
• no-follow-on — terminal completion, nothing else needed
• escalation — kicked up to a higher tier (target = escalation target)

Three of those (handed_off_to, blocked_on, escalation) additionally require closure_target. The daemon enforces this at the domain layer; every surface (CLI, MCP, future UI) inherits the same guarantee.