handoff — resume cold, lose nothing

A handoff is not a to-do list. It is a snapshot of reality precise enough that a fresh agent with no memory of this session can pick up exactly where you left off and make the next correct move. Prefer state over instructions: "flag SF_X is committed but OFF; flip preconditions are Y" beats "go turn on the flag." State stays true when plans change; instructions rot the moment anything shifts.

When to use

• Ending or pausing a session with unfinished work.
• You sense a compaction coming (long session) and want the load-bearing state written down, not summarized away.
• Passing a task to another agent, another worktree, or your future self.

Write these 8 sections (skip one only if truly empty)

1. Goal — the one-sentence objective and why it matters; what "done" looks like, observably.
2. State now — what is actually true this moment: what's built, merged, committed (name the shas + branch), deployed, flagged (on/off), reverted. The load-bearing section. Facts, not narration.
3. Where it lives — branch, worktree path, the 3-5 key files/seams, the spec/plan doc, any relevant PR/deploy URL. The map, so the next agent doesn't re-discover it.
4. Next step — the single most correct next action, concrete enough to start on, then the 2-3 that follow. Not a full plan — the next move.
5. Open decisions — what's genuinely undecided and needs the human, each with the options + your recommendation. Mark what's already settled so it isn't re-litigated.
6. Constraints & gotchas — invariants and traps not obvious from the code: house rules, money-safe boundaries, "don't touch X," the sharp edge that already bit someone this session.
7. Verification — how "done" is proven here (the validation command, the gate, the smoke), and what's been verified vs. still assumed.
8. Preconditions / blockers — what's waiting on someone else (a key in the env, a review, a deploy, an external gate) before the next step can run.

Quality bar

• Absolute over relative: "flip after the Upstash check on 2026-07-05," not "flip it soon." Convert every relative date/reference to an absolute one.
• Shas and paths, not vibes: name the commit, the branch, the file. A fresh agent can git show a sha; it can't act on "the change from earlier."
• Say what's NOT done and what's unverified. An honest gap is worth more than an optimistic "should be fine" — the reader inherits your blind spots unless you name them.
• One artifact. A handoff the next agent must reassemble from five places isn't a handoff. Put it in one file (or one message).

Why state over instructions

Instructions assume the world holds still: "then do step 4" is wrong the moment step 3's result differs. State describes the world so the next agent chooses the right step given how things actually are. A good handoff makes itself robust to being read late — after a merge, a revert, or a changed decision — by recording what is true, not what was planned. Pairs with verify-build (the gate that defines "done") and, on this project, with the persistent memory index (MEMORY.md) for facts that should outlive the session entirely.