Create Handoff
Create structured handoff documents at thoughts/shared/handoffs/{project-name}-handoff-{YYYY-MM-DD}.md to enable seamless work continuity across sessions or between collaborators.
Initial Response
When invoked, gather context by asking:
- •What have you been working on? - Project/feature name, primary goal and scope
- •What's the current state? - What's completed, in progress, blocked?
- •What decisions have been made? - Key technical/product decisions and rationale
- •What happens next? - Immediate next steps, dependencies, expected timeline
- •What context is critical? - Non-obvious details, gotchas, relevant links
Document Structure
1. Overview
- •Project/Task Name: Clear identifier
- •Status: Current state (e.g., "In Progress - 60% complete", "Blocked - waiting on API access")
- •Primary Goal: What success looks like
- •Owner: Who's responsible
2. Context & Decisions
- •Problem Statement: What problem does this solve?
- •Key Decisions: Technical/product decisions with rationale and alternatives considered
- •Assumptions: What we're assuming to be true
- •Dependencies: What this depends on, what depends on this
- •Constraints: Time, technical, or resource constraints
3. Current State
- •Completed Items: What's done (with PR/issue links)
- •In-Progress Work: What's partially complete, files being edited, branches in use
- •Blockers: What's preventing progress, what's needed to unblock
- •Outstanding Questions: Open questions, who can answer them
4. Technical Details
- •File Locations: Absolute paths to all relevant files
- •Architecture Decisions: Key patterns, libraries, structure decisions
- •Code Patterns: Important patterns or conventions to follow
- •Testing Requirements: How this work should be tested
- •Environment/Setup: Any special configuration needed
5. Next Steps
- •Immediate Actions: Prioritized list with estimated effort
- •Expected Outcomes: What each action accomplishes
- •Success Criteria: How to know when each step is done
- •Potential Blockers: What might go wrong, how to handle it
6. References
- •Issues/PRs/Tickets: Links with brief context
- •Documentation: Relevant docs (internal or external)
- •Code References: Links to specific files with line numbers
- •Related Handoffs: Links to previous handoff docs
Formatting Rules
- •Use absolute paths, not relative
- •Link to files rather than duplicating content
- •Be specific: "Add JWT validation to /path/to/auth.py:45-60" not "Implement auth"
- •Show reasoning: explain why decisions were made
- •Prioritize ruthlessly: order next steps by importance
- •Include gotchas: non-obvious things that could trip someone up
- •Use checkboxes for actions to track progress
Sub-Agent Recommendations
- •research-codebase-generic: If you need to understand implementation state before documenting
- •create-plan: If handoff involves future work needing detailed planning
- •commit: Commit changes first so handoff references committed state