Handoff Writer is a skill that produces structured status reports intended to eliminate the context loss that occurs when switching between agents, developers, or work sessions. Rather than requiring a recipient to parse through a long conversation thread or incomplete code, the skill analyzes the current workspace state, conversation history, and pending tasks to generate a concise, actionable document.

The output follows a standardized format organized into four sections. Completed Work provides an audit of what has already been shipped or resolved. Active State captures what is currently in progress, including specific file paths and locations. Strategic Context records critical decisions that were made and any known blockers. The Starting Gun identifies the single most important next step needed to resume the work.

The skill is designed for structured retrieval, preserving technical details such as command names, file paths, and explicit user requirements that are often lost in informal summaries. It applies logic to avoid duplicating information while keeping unresolved questions visible.

This skill is suited to multi-step agentic workflows where one agent needs to hand off to another, or to human-AI collaboration scenarios where a developer is picking up a session that another party started. It is not a code execution or file manipulation tool — it produces documentation artifacts, not working code or system changes.

Use cases

Generate a handoff report at the end of an agentic session so a second agent can resume without re-reading the full conversation

Produce a structured summary of in-progress work before a developer context-switches to a different task

Document completed steps, active state, and blockers after a debugging session to hand off to a teammate

Capture the critical next step and file paths at the end of a long multi-tool workflow

Create a standardized status document before ending a human-AI collaboration session

When to use it

Work is mid-flight and a different agent or person needs to continue it without reviewing the full history

The session involves multiple distinct phases and preserving decisions and blockers between phases matters

Specific file paths, command names, or user requirements must survive the handoff intact

Agentic pipelines require a structured artifact between workflow steps

When not to use it

The goal is to execute code, modify files, or interact with external systems — this skill only produces documentation

A simple one-line status note is sufficient; the structured format adds overhead for trivial handoffs

The recipient has full access to the original conversation and no summarization is needed