git:20261010.19eae11 to git:20261017.2cbdbb2

---

name: handoff

description: Mid-workstream save-state under context pressure; a continuation.

allowed-tools: ["Read", "Write", "Bash", "Grep", "Glob"]

argument-hint: "[optional context]"

---

# Session Handoff — Save State for Next Session

## Handoff Lineage

> **The baseline trigger is involuntary** — context pressure forcing a stop mid-workstream before

> the next action can land. Reaching for `/handoff` because the work *feels* like a good place to

> pause is the disqualifier. Workstreams end via `/workday-complete`, `/merging-to-main`, or

> `/quick-wrap`, never via handoff. **Four deliberate triggers also fire. 1 — the PM asks:** their

> ask IS the authority; no context-pressure test applies or is owed back. **2 — parking:** the next

> action is blocked outside this session's reach (a PM decision, a sibling repo, a peer's landing)

> for longer than this session, and the remit is *resume when the blocker clears*. **3 —

> plan→execute:** review-integration done and the plan is ready to execute. **4 —

> review-owed close** (§ Step 0): the owed review is un-runnable in this session for a reason on

> the ratified closed class of un-runnable-here reasons, cited by name.

> (research → goal-setting → plan → execute → verify) is a continuation**, never a `/spinoff`.

> **A `roadmap-baton`'s successor is a `roadmap-baton`** and inherits `stub_id`, `roadmap_id`,

decisions, the decisions-file template and the literal `apply` line arrive with this invocation.

Write your answers into the template at the named path and run the rendered line with `--title "<one line>"` appended, taken from the invocation argument (or the handoff's own subject when none was given) — `apply` refuses a missing, blank or placeholder title. An unanswered `<CHOOSE: …>` or `<NOTE: …>` placeholder makes

the file unparseable, and `apply` refuses it.

**The brief names the rung the lineage resolved from.** If it is not the artifact this handoff is

**`apply` is the single route out — never hand-execute the directive list.** `apply` cannot run? Repair `PATH` and retry; still blocked → leave the draft at its target path and name it in the final report (`coordinator-tripwires/a-non-path-path-is-a-break-class-fault-reported-not-worked-around.md`).

No brief block in context means the entry hook failed open: run `baton-assemble brief handoff`

with no artifact-path, resolved per `${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/snippets/resolve-coordinator-bin.md`

(`coordinator-tripwires/an-autofire-hook-that-did-not-fire-is-silent.md`).

Once `apply`'s commit lands, trigger project-rag's SCIP rebuild in the background (best-effort,

never blocks): `"$_py"

"${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT:-<content-root>/coordinator}/bin/scip-rebuild-at-ceremony.py" --ceremony handoff`

(§ Plugin-local `coordinator/bin/`, `resolve-coordinator-bin.md`).

check.** Before this session ends, run `session-claim-cli list-claims-by-session <sid>` and

release each `path\t<p>` line it does not need with `session-claim-cli release-artifact artifact

<path>`. Recheck any path a safe-commit already committed but this session then edited again.

`coordinator/docs/wiki/coordinator-tripwires/touch-claim-retirement-is-commit-path-specific-who-claims-path-is-the-only-instrument-that-sees-it.md`.

---

## Step 0: Trigger Check — Is Context Pressure Actually Forcing This?

Confirm at least one trigger fires and no NO-test trips. The PRIMARY question: can this session

still take its next action? If it can *and nothing outside the session blocks it*, you are

deferring, not handing off — a violation regardless of how tidy the state looks. If nothing fires,

STOP and take the next action here.

**Two triggers skip this gate.** A PM ask is self-authorizing — write it, don't audit it against

context pressure and don't answer with a trigger analysis. A blocked next action is real too: name

the blocker and the event that clears it in the successor's remit.

**On a box whose successor cannot be reached (a cloud session), context pressure is not a handoff

trigger at all.** Append what the post-compaction self needs to the baton this session already has

**Trigger 4 (review-owed close) is an instance of this same blocked-next-action skip, not a

second discharge.** The ratified closed class of un-runnable-here reasons is stated once, at

`coordinator/docs/wiki/coordinator-tripwires/two-ceremonies-two-predicates-one-handover.md`

(which cites its own ruling record); the roster is reproduced inline only so no second file need

be opened. Trigger 4 qualifies only when the

owed review is un-runnable in this session for a reason on that class — a hard-stop oracle

disagreement, a

quota-exhausted dispatch, a live peer's files this session must not touch, or the `review_scale`

gate returning unresolved on the row-4 brightline inputs where the per-owned-commit summation

that would otherwise name the scale by hand is itself un-runnable in this session for a

separately named external reason (not merely un-performed) — each with its clearing event outside

this session's reach. Name the blocker and the event that clears it, in the

successor's remit, exactly as above — no parallel discharge for the review case, and no reason

admitted off this roster by analogy.

**A successor session existing is not itself a qualifying clearing event:** the clearing event is

the outside-the-session fact (a PM/reviewer-pool decision, a quota reset, a peer's landing) that

**A parked successor's frontmatter is `deployment_state: awaiting_gate` plus a named gate —

`blocked_by` when a stub or handoff on the graph clears it, `gate_notes` when nothing on the

graph does (a sibling plane's ruling) — with `pickup_ready` false or omitted.** The scaffold hands

you `ready_to_fire` + `pickup_ready: true`; leaving that above blocker prose advertises the baton

as available work. A gate a human clears carries a `gate_evidence` leg of kind `human` with its

reason; where a check shows whether the condition fired, add a `probe-command` leg (repo key,

script plus args, what the output reads). Until the published engine re-vendors schema 10.12.0,