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Handoff

Handoff Skill

by Matt Pocock mattpocock/skills

Compress the current Claude Code session into a portable handoff document so a fresh agent can continue the work without re-reading the whole conversation.

GitHub
Development
Released
MIT

Install

Install with the skills CLI

One command for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, Windsurf and dozens of other agents. Needs Node.js; the skill is fetched straight from mattpocock/skills.

$ npx skills add mattpocock/skills --skill handoff

Run it in a terminal. The CLI finds the agents installed on your machine, asks which ones to add the skill to, and whether to install it into the folder you ran it from or for all your projects.

Other ways to install

  1. Open the skill on GitHub and download the folder that holds its SKILL.md.
  2. Put it at ~/.claude/skills/handoff/, where Claude Code picks it up in every project.

No scripts or references next to it? Saving the SKILL.md alone as ~/.claude/skills/handoff/SKILL.md works too.

Using another agent? Its personal skills folder
Codex
~/.agents/skills/
Cursor
~/.cursor/skills/
GitHub Copilot
~/.copilot/skills/
Gemini CLI
~/.gemini/skills/
Windsurf
~/.codeium/windsurf/skills/
OpenCode
~/.config/opencode/skills/
Open folder on GitHub

About

  • Summarises the session into a handoff doc for another agent to resume
  • Writes to the OS temp directory, never the workspace
  • References specs, plans, issues and diffs by path instead of duplicating them
  • Adds a 'suggested skills' section for the next agent
  • Redacts API keys, passwords and PII automatically

Handoff is a lightweight Claude Code skill from TypeScript educator Matt Pocock that compresses your current session into a portable handoff document so a fresh agent — or a teammate — can pick the work up without re-reading the whole conversation. On invocation it writes a concise summary to the OS temporary directory (never the workspace), references existing artifacts like specs, plans, ADRs, issues and diffs by path instead of duplicating them, and adds a "suggested skills" section naming which skills the next agent should load.

It is built for long or context-heavy sessions where you want to delegate, resume after a reset, or split a task across agents while keeping token usage down. It automatically redacts secrets and PII from the summary, and accepts an argument describing what the next session will focus on so the document is tailored to the continuation. Part of Matt Pocock's open-source skills collection, MIT licensed and installable with npx skills add mattpocock/skills skill=handoff.

SKILL.md

The instructions your agent loads, as published by Matt Pocock.

SKILL.md
name
handoff
description
Compact the current conversation into a handoff document for another agent to pick up.
argument-hint
What will the next session be used for?
disable-model-invocation
true

Write a handoff document summarising the current conversation so a fresh agent can continue the work. Save to the temporary directory of the user's OS - not the current workspace.

Include a "suggested skills" section in the document, naming which skills the next agent should call the Skill tool for.

Do not duplicate content already captured in other artifacts (specs, 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.

Install

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