handoff-more

/handoff-more — load older handoffs into context

Prerequisite: this skill reads history that only exists when the scripts and hooks from https://github.com/Sting25/claude-code-handoff are installed — write_handoff.sh is what rotates snapshots into handoff_history/. That toolchain lives under ~/.claude/bin/ (script install) or the plugin's bin/ (plugin install) and is NOT part of this file alone; run ./install.sh from that repo (or install the plugin) once per machine first.

The SessionStart hook auto-loads handoff_current.md (the most recent handoff). This skill pulls in the older snapshots that write_handoff.sh rotated into <repo>/.claude/handoff_history/ before each new write.

When to invoke

• User asks explicitly (/handoff-more, "load more handoff context," "what did we do two sessions ago," etc.).
• Auto-loaded handoff is thin. If handoff_current.md was the result of an automatic SessionEnd write (no model in the loop to add curated Notes), the SessionStart hook already loaded the prior one as a fallback. But if the user is referencing decisions or work the assistant still can't account for, run this skill to pull further back.
• Continuity gap. User mentions a track, decision, or artifact you have no context on, and the current handoff doesn't reference it.

Steps

1. List the history dir:

   ls -la <repo-root>/.claude/handoff_history/
   

   If the directory is missing or empty, check whether that's "no history yet" or "toolchain never installed". Script installs put the scripts under ~/.claude/bin/; plugin installs put them under the plugin's bin/. CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT would name that location, but measurement (2026-08-11, plugin-enabled headless session) shows the CLI does NOT export it to model-driven Bash calls — the env-var check stays only as cheap future-proofing, and in plugin mode the cache-glob is the branch that actually resolves:

   hb=""
   if [ -n "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT:-}" ] && [ -f "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/bin/write_handoff.sh" ]; then
     hb="${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/bin"
   elif [ -f "$HOME/.claude/bin/write_handoff.sh" ]; then
     hb="$HOME/.claude/bin"
   else
     nb=0
     for d in "${CLAUDE_CONFIG_DIR:-$HOME/.claude}"/plugins/cache/*/claude-code-handoff/*/bin; do
       if [ -f "$d/write_handoff.sh" ]; then
         t="$(stat -f %m "$d/write_handoff.sh" 2>/dev/null || stat -c %Y "$d/write_handoff.sh" 2>/dev/null || echo 0)"
         [ "$t" -ge "$nb" ] && nb="$t" && hb="$d"
       fi
     done
   fi
   # env var wins when set (running from that plugin), legacy bin next (existing
   # installs), cache glob last (plugin installed but env var not visible to
   # skill Bash); among cached versions the newest mtime wins. NOT lexical
   

last-match: glob order sorts 0.9.0 AFTER 0.14.0, so that silently ran an

older cached version across a digit-count boundary (fixed v0.14.1).

[ -n "$hb" ] || echo "MISSING: handoff scripts not installed (neither ~/.claude/bin nor a plugin install found)" echo "handoff-bin: $hb"

(This skill only reads directories — `$hb` isn't invoked elsewhere
in this file, so there's no cross-call persistence concern here.)
If it prints MISSING, stop and tell the user to clone
https://github.com/Sting25/claude-code-handoff and run `./install.sh`
(or install the plugin) — don't try to substitute for the missing
toolchain. If the scripts ARE installed, say there's simply no
history yet and stop — there's nothing to load.