Captures a running summary of project decisions and noteworthy moments for session continuity.

Install

mkdir -p .claude/skills/handoff-rakovi4 && curl -L -o skill.zip "https://agentskills.codes/api/skills/download/18216" && unzip -o skill.zip -d .claude/skills/handoff-rakovi4 && rm skill.zip

Installs to .claude/skills/handoff-rakovi4

Activation

This is the description your AI agent reads to decide when to run this skill — the better it matches your request, the more reliably it fires.

Write a journey summary capturing noteworthy moments (predictions, decisions, surprises, mistakes, quirks). Runs automatically the moment the agent observes something worth noting during work, and manually before /clear or /compact as a final sweep. Idempotent — skips entries already recorded. Use when the agent observes a noteworthy moment, before clearing context, or when the user mentions /handoff.
404 chars✓ has a “when” triggerlonger than Claude Code's old 250-char listing cap (fine on current versions)
Beginner

Key capabilities

  • Capture noteworthy moments during work sessions
  • Persist conversation context for future sessions
  • Identify the work item and review window for summary generation
  • Append entries to summary files in a strict format
  • Promote codebase-quirk and system-invariant entries to carryover.md

How it works

The skill identifies noteworthy moments in the conversation history and appends them to specific summary files. It also promotes relevant information to a carryover file for long-term context preservation.

Inputs & outputs

You give it
Agent's observations during a work session
You get back
Updated summary files and carryover.md

When to use handoff

  • Summarize project progress
  • Document major architectural decisions
  • Create end-of-session handoff logs

About this skill

/handoff - Preserve Conversation Context

Run this to persist what a future session would otherwise lose. /handoff runs automatically the moment the agent observes something worth noting during work, and manually before /clear or /compact as a final sweep. /handoff is the ONLY writer of journey summaries and carryover.

Workflow

  1. Identify the work item -- find the story or task the conversation worked on (recent git log Story N / Task N, or the progress.md that changed). Resolve its folder.
  2. Locate the last work-unit commit -- the conversation since that commit is the review window. Everything after it (discussion, debugging, decisions) is what /handoff captures; the work unit itself is already recorded in progress.md and its commit.
  3. Review the window against the "When to Write" triggers in .claude/templates/workflow/summary-format.md. Decide, per trigger, whether anything noteworthy happened.
  4. Write entries, or nothing -- if at least one trigger fired, append entries to the summary file (see File Layout) in the strict format from .claude/templates/workflow/summary-format.md. Before appending, check the file for an entry already covering the same moment and skip it -- /handoff runs many times per conversation and must not duplicate. If nothing fired, or every fired trigger is already recorded, create no file and append no line -- report "nothing to record".
  5. Promote carryover -- if a scenario's last step is now [x] (scenario complete), promote codebase-quirk and system-invariant entries from that scenario's summary to carryover.md at the story root, each with a From: scenario N (slug) backreference. Tasks have no carryover.
  6. Report -- list each file touched and each entry appended (or "nothing to record"), then tell the user it is safe to /clear.

File Layout

Work itemSummary fileCarryover
Story scenarioProductSpecification/stories/NN-story-name/summaries/{scenario-slug}.mdProductSpecification/stories/NN-story-name/carryover.md
TaskProductSpecification/tasks/N-type-slug/summary.mdnone

{scenario-slug} derives from the scenario heading in progress.md. Files are created lazily -- only on first append.

Constraints

The append-only, lazy-creation, idempotent, strict-format, and no-forward-looking-instructions rules are defined in .claude/templates/workflow/summary-format.md and .claude/guidelines/workflow-detail.md (Resuming Across Conversations). Apply them — do not restate them. /handoff is the sole writer of journey summaries and carryover; /continue only reads them.

Authoritative References

  • .claude/guidelines/workflow-detail.md -- "Resuming Across Conversations": how journey summaries fit the workflow, who writes and reads them.
  • .claude/templates/workflow/summary-format.md -- when to write, entry header, block types, length limit, DO/DON'T-WRITE examples.

When not to use it

  • When the agent does not observe anything noteworthy
  • When the user wants to duplicate already recorded entries
  • When the user wants to write forward-looking instructions in the summary

Limitations

  • The skill is append-only and skips entries already recorded
  • It adheres to a strict format for summary entries
  • It does not write forward-looking instructions

How it compares

This skill automatically records and organizes key observations and decisions, ensuring continuity across sessions, which differs from relying on manual note-taking.

Compared to similar skills

handoff side by side with the closest alternatives in the catalog.

SkillInstallsUpdatedSafetyDifficulty
handoff (this skill)022dNo flagsBeginner
meeting-minutes415moNo flagsBeginner
super-save11moReviewBeginner
k-docs06moNo flagsBeginner

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Example prompts that trigger this skill in your AI assistant.

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