productivity / Work & communicate
handoff
Compact the current conversation into a handoff document for another agent to pick up.
Put it to work.
Ask your agent to use handoff, or let it load the skill when your task matches the description.
Use the handoff skill What will the next session be used for?Invocation syntax varies by agent. Use the skill name in your prompt, or your agent’s supported slash command.
About this skill
Compact the current conversation into a handoff document so another
agent can pick up the work. The doc lives at a mktemp path so it doesn't
clutter the repo, and references existing artifacts (PRDs, plans, ADRs,
issues, commits, diffs) by path or URL rather than duplicating them.
Usage
Trigger when you're about to end a session and want the next agent (or yourself, tomorrow) to start without re-reading the whole transcript.
The skill takes an optional argument describing what the next session will focus on — pass it to tailor the doc accordingly. Example:
/handoff finish the migration and run the smoke testsIf no argument is provided, the doc summarises the whole conversation.
What it produces
- A markdown file at
$(mktemp -t handoff-XXXXXX.md)containing:- The current state of the work.
- References to existing artifacts (no duplication).
- A suggested set of skills for the next session.
Install
npx skills@latest add smeltery/skillsOr copy just this skill:
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/handoff
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/smeltery/skills/main/skills/productivity/handoff/SKILL.md \
-o ~/.claude/skills/handoff/SKILL.mdFiles
SKILL.md— canonical skill definition.
Attribution
Ported from mattpocock/skills under MIT. See THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.md.
Read the full SKILL.md
Write a handoff document summarising the current conversation so a fresh agent can continue the work. Save it to a path produced by mktemp -t handoff-XXXXXX.md (read the file before you write to it).
Include a "suggested skills" section in the document, which suggests skills that the agent should invoke.
Do not duplicate content already captured in other artifacts (PRDs, plans, ADRs, issues, commits, diffs). Reference them by path or URL instead.
Redact any sensitive information, such as API keys, passwords, or personally identifiable information.
If the user passed arguments, treat them as a description of what the next session will focus on and tailor the doc accordingly.