create-handoff

Create Handoff

You are tasked with writing a handoff document to hand off your work to another agent in a new session. You will create a handoff document that is thorough, but also concise. The goal is to compact and summarize your context without losing any of the key details of what you're working on.

Process

1. Filepath & Metadata

Use the following information to understand how to create your document:

First, determine the session name from existing handoffs:

ls -td thoughts/shared/handoffs/*/ 2>/dev/null | head -1 | xargs basename

This returns the most recently modified handoff folder name (e.g., open-source-release). Use this as the handoff folder name.

If no handoffs exist, use general as the folder name.

Create your file under: thoughts/shared/handoffs/{session-name}/YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM_description.yaml, where:

• {session-name} is from existing handoffs (e.g., open-source-release) or general if none exist
• YYYY-MM-DD is today's date
• HH-MM is the current time in 24-hour format (no seconds needed)
• description is a brief kebab-case description

Examples:

• thoughts/shared/handoffs/open-source-release/2026-01-08_16-30_memory-system-fix.yaml
• thoughts/shared/handoffs/general/2026-01-08_16-30_bug-investigation.yaml

2. Write YAML handoff (~400 tokens vs ~2000 for markdown)

CRITICAL: Use EXACTLY this YAML format. Do NOT deviate or use alternative field names.

The goal: and now: fields are shown in the statusline - they MUST be named exactly this.

---
session: {session-name from ledger}
date: YYYY-MM-DD
status: complete|partial|blocked
outcome: SUCCEEDED|PARTIAL_PLUS|PARTIAL_MINUS|FAILED
---

goal: {What this session accomplished - shown in statusline}
now: {What next session should do first - shown in statusline}
test: {Command to verify this work, e.g., pytest tests/test_foo.py}

done_this_session:
  - task: {First completed task}
    files: [{file1.py}, {file2.py}]
  - task: {Second completed task}
    files: [{file3.py}]

blockers: [{any blocking issues}]

questions: [{unresolved questions for next session}]

decisions:
  - {decision_name}: {rationale}

findings:
  - {key_finding}: {details}

worked: [{approaches that worked}]
failed: [{approaches that failed and why}]

next:
  - {First next step}
  - {Second next step}

files:
  created: [{new files}]
  modified: [{changed files}]