recursive-spine-handover

name

recursive-spine-handover

description

Use when closing a unit of work — an issue is about to close, a PR is about to merge, or a session is ending with its work complete. Assembles the closing record as a comment on the issue: debts filed before the close (principle 4), the pollen question asked, state pointers captured, the down-tier offer made. Previews the comment before posting; degrades loudly when gh or the constraints file is missing.

recursive-spine: handover

The closing record for a unit of work. Read ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/reference/principles.md (principle 4) first. The record is a comment on the closing issue — never a file. A docs/handovers/ directory would be a prose ledger, exactly what principle 1 retires.

Spine handover is not tokenomics handoff: this skill produces a closing record; tokenomics' handoff-spec is a dispatch contract for down-tier execution. The two documents stay separate on purpose.

1. Identify the unit

The unit is the issue that is closing. Confirm it: gh issue view <N>. Find its state pointers — branch (<prefix>/<issue>-<slug> per the convention), PR (gh pr list --search "<N>" --state all), and the key commits. If no issue exists for the work being closed, stop: file one first (a unit without an issue was never tracked; offer recursive-spine-bootstrap if the repo has no tracking at all).

2. Debts, before the close

Ask for the unit's known-incomplete edges. Every one becomes an issue before the closing comment is posted — deferral/debt labels per the repo's dialect note. A closing comment that names a debt without a filed issue is a principle-4 violation; this skill never posts one. If the builder says there are no debts, record how that was checked (e.g. "reviewed the PR diff and the unit's acceptance list").

Then attach each filed debt as a sub-issue of the closing unit — mechanics in ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/reference/sub-issues.md (Attach) — so the lineage is a query, not comment archaeology. The closing comment still lists every debt by number: the comment is the human record, the attachment is the machine truth. A debt whose repo the actor cannot write to, or whose visibility must not leak into the parent's public count (private debt under a public unit), stays unattached; list it in the comment with the marker (unattached: <permissions|visibility>). If attachment fails, degrade loudly per the reference: the close proceeds, the comment says the tree is incomplete and why.

3. The pollen question

Ask it in principle 4's wording: "any pollen to capture?" If yes, hand to recursive-spine-pollinate for capture (this skill records nothing into hives itself). If no, the comment says so and says how it was checked — an honest denominator, not a reflex "none".

4. Assemble, preview, post

Build the comment from this template:

## Handover — closing #<N>
**Debts filed:** #<A> (<what>), #<B> (<what>, unattached: visibility) — or "none; checked <how>"
**Pollen:** captured <slug> / "nothing proved itself this unit; checked <how>"
**State:** branch <name>, PR #<M>, key commits <shas>
**Constraints at close:** docs/constraints.md @ <sha of current HEAD touching it>
**Down-tier next?** → tokenomics' handoff-spec owns that doc (offer; wiring per the dialect note)

Rules:

• Show the finished comment and get approval before posting (gh issue comment <N> --body-file <tmp>). Diff-first, always.
• The constraints line pins the sha at close so the digest can measure staleness later. No constraints file in the repo → omit the line, offer recursive-spine-scaffold's constraints part, and say so in the comment's place ("no constraints file; scaffold part offered").
• The down-tier line is an offer, present only when the dialect note records tokenomics wiring; otherwise omit it. Never require kin.

Degrade paths (loud, never silent)

• No gh auth: print the finished comment for manual posting; do not pretend it was posted.
• No dialect note: use the convention's defaults (deferred label) and say so in the comment.
• Issue already closed: post the record anyway and note it arrived after the close — late record beats no record.

Never

• Never post a closing comment naming an unfiled debt.
• Never write the handover to a file in the repo.
• Never skip the pollen question, or answer it with an unchecked "none".
• Never require tokenomics or plumb-line for any function.
• Never close the issue itself unless asked — the record is this skill's job; the close is the builder's.