handoff

handoff is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from openclaw/agent-skills. It costs 18 tokens per session (972 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A tool that writes a ready-to-copy prompt for another coding agent to investigate or continue a task. The prompt includes relevant project context, likely files, constraints, and known symptoms.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when delegating a task, handing work to another agent, or asking a fresh agent to independently review an issue before making changes.
Why use it?
It transfers the important background to a new agent so the next investigation can start with context instead of repeating basic discovery.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

About the project

OpenClaw Agent Skills is a shared repository of reusable workflows for coding agents working on OpenClaw projects. It provides skills for activities such as code-review closeout, behavior validation, session handoff, remote testing, transcript provenance, and viewing agent sessions. The catalogue entries are the project’s distributed skills and instruction.

openclaw/agent-skills · 1,078 stars · on GitHub

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 skills/openclaw/agent-skills/handoff
Any agent
npx skills add openclaw/agent-skills --skill handoff
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/openclaw/agent-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

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/openclaw/agent-skills/handoff.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/openclaw/agent-skills/handoff)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/openclaw/agent-skills/handoff"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/openclaw/agent-skills/handoff.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 18 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 972 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. 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 $0.00018 $0.00972
Opus 5 $0.00009 $0.00486
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00194
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00097

Measured 5d ago against content hash 1c4ddff7f185, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, 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 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.

Origin

Copies of this mod

1 near-identical copy found in the catalogue:

  • handoff — 94% identical, 13 lines differ
skills/handoff/SKILL.md · 112 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 112 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Handoff

Write a clipboard-ready prompt for another agent to investigate, discuss, or work on a specific task.

Use when the user asks for handoff <task>, "write a handoff", "delegate this", or wants a prompt for another agent.

Workflow

  1. Identify the task from the user text. If the user gives only a short label, infer from the current repo, recent discussion, branch name, linked issue/PR, docs, and obvious nearby context.
  2. Gather enough context to write a useful handoff: repo/product identity, relevant issue/PR/branch names, likely modules, constraints, and known symptoms. Do not perform the receiving agent's full independent review or decide the final technical direction for them.
  3. Write a standalone prompt for a fresh agent.
  4. Copy the full prompt to the clipboard.
  5. Final reply: terse confirmation with the task title. Do not paste the full prompt unless the user asks.

Handoff Prompt Rules

The prompt must:

  • Start a discussion, not a command-only work order.
  • Ask the receiving agent to do an extensive independent review before changing anything.
  • Make clear that the receiving agent owns that review; the handoff only gives starting context and known constraints.
  • Ask the agent to decide whether the task is a good idea, stale, already solved, over-scoped, or better handled differently.
  • Assume the agent starts in the repo, a parent directory, a workspace directory, or a home directory and can find the repo itself.
  • Avoid filesystem paths. No absolute paths, home-directory paths, checkout names, or repo-relative file paths unless the user explicitly requests them.
  • Use portable anchors instead: repo owner/name, product/module names, issue/PR URLs, branch names, package/plugin names, public symbols, command names, config keys, exact error text, docs titles, and search terms.
  • Include enough context for the receiving agent to get the right repo, boundary, and desired outcome.
  • Include constraints, non-goals, validation expectations, and the desired output shape.
  • Tell the receiving agent to re-check live repo/GitHub/CI state where relevant.
  • Tell the receiving agent not to push, merge, close issues/PRs, label, or post public comments unless the handoff explicitly asks for it.

Read the full file on GitHub · 112 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 · 112 lines · 18 tokens per session scan A 1c4ddff7f185

Subscribe to this mod's changes

handoff is a skill published in the GitHub repository openclaw/agent-skills (1,078 stars, last pushed yesterday), licensed MIT. It adds 18 tokens to every session and 972 once invoked, about $0.0001 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 2026-08-30.

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