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SKILL.md

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---
name: session-handoff
description: Use before a context reset, session end, or when passing work to a fresh agent - compresses current state into a markdown doc detailed enough to resume from cold
---

# Session Handoff

A context reset or a fresh agent picking up mid-task loses everything that
isn't written down. This skill produces one markdown document that lets
work resume without re-deriving decisions already made.

## What to capture

1. **Task, one paragraph.** What is being built/fixed and why, in plain
   language — not a link to a ticket, an actual restatement.
2. **State right now.** What's done, what's in progress, what's untouched.
   Be specific: "auth middleware written and tested; route wiring not
   started" beats "mostly done."
3. **Key decisions and why.** Any point where more than one approach was
   possible and one was chosen — name the alternative and the reason it was
   rejected. This is the part that's genuinely expensive to re-derive.
4. **Files touched**, with a one-line note on what changed in each.
5. **Blockers and open questions.** Anything waiting on a human decision,
   an external system, or information not yet available.
6. **Next step**, singular and concrete — not a list of everything left,
   just what to do immediately upon resuming.
7. **Gotchas.** Anything a fresh agent would predictably get wrong or
   re-discover the hard way (a flaky test, a misleading file name, an
   undocumented constraint).

## Format

Plain markdown, headed sections matching the list above. Optimize for a
reader with zero session memory — write as if briefing a competent
colleague who is walking in cold, not as a note to yourself.

## When to write one

Proactively before a context window fills up, always before intentionally
ending a session with work in progress, and any time work is being handed
to a different agent or person.