continuum-handoffs

Continuum Handoffs Skill

Authoritative source: docs/agent.md, §7.

Handoffs are agent-to-agent transitions ("triage → billing"), distinct from workflow agents which compose multiple agents into one (Sequential, Parallel, etc.). Use a RouterAgent for stateless routing; use handoffs when the source agent should be able to decide at any turn that the target should take over.

---

Imports

from continuum.agent import BaseAgent, AgentRunner, Handoff
from continuum.agent.types import HistorySummarizationMode, HandoffData, HandoffResult
from continuum.agent.exceptions import (
    HandoffNotAllowedError, HandoffDepthExceededError,
    HandoffTargetNotFoundError,
)
# HandoffCycleDetectedError is NOT re-exported from `continuum.agent`:
from continuum.agent.exceptions import HandoffCycleDetectedError

---

Define a triage agent

billing   = BaseAgent(name="billing",   instructions="Help with invoices and refunds.")
technical = BaseAgent(name="technical", instructions="Help with bugs and outages.")

triage = BaseAgent(
    name="triage",
    instructions="Route the customer to the right specialist.",
    handoffs=[
        Handoff(target_agent="billing",
                description="Billing, payments, refunds, invoices"),
        Handoff(target_agent="technical",
                description="Bugs, errors, outages, integration issues"),
    ],
)

runner = AgentRunner(agent_registry={
    "triage": triage, "billing": billing, "technical": technical,
})
resp = await runner.run(triage, "I want a refund for invoice 1234",
                        user_id="u1", session_id="s1")
print(resp.handoff_chain)            # ["triage", "billing"]
print(resp.content)                  # the billing agent's reply

---

Handoff fields

Field	Type	Default	Purpose
target_agent	str	required	Name of the target agent
description	str	required	When this handoff should fire — read by the LLM
condition	str | Callable | None	None	Extra guard (rarely used)
transfer_history	bool	True	Pass conversation history to the target
summarize_history	bool	True	Run an LLM summarization before transferring
summarization_mode	HistorySummarizationMode	HYBRID	See table below
recent_messages	int	5	Used by RECENT_N and HYBRID
return_to_parent	bool	True	After the target finishes, control returns to the source