cw-handoff

# cw-handoff A handoff is read by an agent with none of your context and every incentive to believe you. That makes an optimistic handoff worse than no handoff: it converts your guesses into the next session's premises. Write it so the reader can re-derive the state instead of trusting the prose. Stage 6 of the loop, and the one that makes the loop a loop: the next session starts at [cw-orient](../cw-orient/SKILL.md) with what you leave here. ## When to use - Ending a session with work in flight. - Asked for "a prompt for another agent", branch takeover instructions, a continuation note, or a summary of current state for async work. - Handing a lane to a different model, a fleet worker, or a remote session. ## Workflow 1. **Write it as a prompt the next agent can paste directly.** Not a report about the work — instructions for continuing it. 2. **Open with the refresh block, not with your summary.** The first thing the reader should do is verify you: ```bash cd <repo path> git status --short --branch && git branch --show-current git log --oneline --decorate -20 git worktree list ./scripts/release/check-versions.sh ``` Tell them to trust that output over anything below it. 3. **Cover these, in whatever order fits; drop sections that are empty:** - Repository path and expected branch or worktree. - The authority line: what they may and may not do without asking. Default to local-only — no push, merge, tag, publish, GitHub Release, or destructive cleanup without explicit approval. - Durable files to read, ordered by importance: the scoped `AGENTS.md` for the area, then the specific docs (`docs/CACHE.md`, `docs/MOTION_CONTRACT.md`, `docs/ARCHITECTURE.md`, `crates/tui/AGENTS.md`) the task actually touches. - Commits already landed, with SHAs. - **Dirty worktree caveats, naming uncommitted files explicitly**, and whose they are. This is the single most useful line in most handoffs. - The next slices, in priority order, each bounded the way [cw-slice](../cw-slice/SKILL.md) bounds one. - The verification gate for those slices — the smallest correct one from [cw-gates](../cw-gates/SKILL.md), plus any known-flaky names. - Open decisions that genuinely belong to Hunter. 4. **Separate three states, and never blur them:** *done and verified* (with the command output that proves it), *suspected* (a hypothesis, labeled), and *blocked* (with what unblocks it). If you did not run it, it is not done. 5. **Say what the branch is for.** Local-only, pushed for backup, or intended to stay unpushed — the next agent cannot tell from `git` alone, and guessing wrong is how work gets force-pushed away. 6. **Record missing external receipts.** If the task was local-only, say which evidence you could not gather (CI state, registry state, review threads) rather than inferring it. A named gap is useful; a confident guess is not. ## Red flags / don't - Don't imply publication happened unless you verified registry, tag, or release state live. - Don't hand off a narrative. Prefer concrete paths, commands, and SHAs. - Don't summarize away the dirt. Unnamed uncommitted files get destroyed. - Don't hand the next agent decisions you could have made. Reserve Hunter-facing choices for product direction, irreversible actions, and visual judgments that need eyes. - Don't copy a previous handoff's state forward. Re-derive it; that is what step 2 is for. - Don't include secrets, tokens, or provider credentials in a handoff file. ## Output A single paste-ready block with the default shape — refresh commands, authority line, files to read, landed SHAs, named dirty files, prioritized next slices, the verification gate, and the open decisions — with done / suspected / blocked visibly separated. Compress when trivial, but never compress away the state separation: that is what keeps guesses from becoming the next session's premises.