Session Handoff

Session Handoff Skill

Generates a structured, deterministic session summary designed to be fed into a new Claude Code session or used with /compact to preserve continuity without relying on auto-compact's generative summarization.

The Problem This Solves

Auto-compact summarizes freely — it infers, fills gaps, and occasionally fabricates continuity. The result is non-deterministic and degrades session fidelity, especially for complex consulting and architecture work where rationale, constraints, and rejected options are as important as decisions made.

This skill produces a terse, fact-only summary that can be fed verbatim into a new session as a deterministic context handoff.

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When to Trigger

Trigger this skill when:

• User mentions context limit, compacting, or starting a new session
• Ctx percentage is approaching 60% (the recommended threshold for consulting work)
• User says "save where we are", "session summary", "handoff", or similar
• A long architecture or consulting session is wrapping up a phase

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The Summary Prompt

Use this prompt verbatim when generating the handoff. Do not deviate from the structure or add sections not listed here.

Summarize this session using exactly these sections:

1. Decisions made (include rationale for each decision)
2. Active constraints (client-specific, technical, scope)
3. Committed AWS service choices (services already selected and why)
4. Rejected options (include the reason each was rejected)
5. Current state of work (what is done, in-progress, not started)
6. Open questions (unresolved items that must carry forward)
7. Key entities (client name, system names, integrations, stakeholders)

Rules:

• Be terse. One to two sentences per item maximum.
• No inferred information. If it was not explicitly stated in this session, omit it.
• No filler, transitions, or commentary between sections.
• Omit any section that has nothing explicitly stated.
• Do not summarize the summary. Output the sections only.

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Output Format

Wrap the output in a clearly labeled block the user can paste directly into a new session or feed to /compact:

Session Handoff — [date] [brief topic label]

[summary sections here]

---Generated at Ctx: XX% — feed this block verbatim into the next session.

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Key Principles

• "No inferred information" is the critical instruction. Claude will pad and infer by default. This line suppresses that behavior and is what makes the output deterministic.
• Act before 60% Ctx. Summary quality degrades under context pressure. A faithful summary requires enough working window to generate it accurately.
• Rationale is the highest-value content. Decisions without rationale force re-litigating closed issues in the next session. Capture the why, not just the what.
• Rejected options are equally important. They prevent the next session from retreading ground already covered.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: forest
• Source: forest/agent-skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.