MasterMind: Handoff

Context is the fundamental constraint (~/.mastermind/engineering/core/agent-loop.md); a long task shouldn't lose its thread to a reset. Capture just enough to resume cold: high signal, low tokens.

Capture

1. Goal: the outcome being built, in one line.
2. State: Done / In-progress / Next, as a short checklist. Be honest about what's not verified.
3. Key decisions & why: the non-obvious choices and their rationale (so they aren't relitigated).
4. Map: where the relevant code/files/config live; the entry points.
5. Gotchas: traps, failing things, env quirks, anything that bit you.
6. How to resume & verify: the exact command(s)/check to pick up and confirm green.

Rules

Summarize and link, point to detail rather than pasting it. Write it where the next session will look (.mastermind/HANDOFF.md, a scratch file, or the issue). Prune it when the work completes.

Output

A tight .mastermind/HANDOFF.md: goal, state checklist, decisions, file map, gotchas, resume+verify steps.

The ledger: for work that outlives one context window

A handoff is written once, at the pause. A ledger runs the whole way through: an append-only record of what has actually been completed, so a long task can lose its thread without losing its place. Start one when the work will be summarized more than once.

• First line names the work: the plan, spec, or issue it belongs to. A ledger nobody can match to a plan is a page of orphaned sentences.
• Append one line as each step completes: what was done, and the check that proved it. Earlier entries are never rewritten or tidied: it is a record of what happened, not a plan of what will.
• Conversation memory does not survive compaction: trust the ledger and the git log over your own recollection, most of all when you feel certain. Re-doing finished steps is the costliest failure in long-horizon work, and it always arrives wearing "I remember doing that." Read the record, then act.

Same instinct as the episodic journal appended at each verdict (~/.mastermind/engineering/core/rigor.md), one level down: the journal spans tasks, the ledger spans steps inside one.