A handoff is how work survives the end of a session. Context windows fill up, conversations get long and confused, and sometimes you just want a fresh start. A handoff captures where things stand so the next session, or the next agent, can continue without relearning everything from scratch.
Why you need one
The model remembers nothing between sessions, so if you clear the context or the window overflows, whatever the agent worked out is gone. A handoff is the deliberate save point: you write down the state before it disappears.
It is the healthier alternative to letting a window degrade. Rather than pushing a bloated session further and hoping compaction keeps the right details, you summarise on purpose and start clean.
A good handoff usually captures:
- What is done and what is confirmed working.
- What is next and what is blocked.
- The key decisions and why they were made.
That summary, written down, is the handoff artifact the successor reads.
Related terms
Handoff artifact
A handoff artifact is the concrete document produced at a handoff, recording what is done, what is next, and the key decisions. The next session reads it to get up to speed fast.
Read definition →Clearing
Clearing is deliberately wiping the context to start fresh. It is often the cleanest fix for a bloated or confused window.
Read definition →Compaction
Compaction is condensing older conversation history into a summary to reclaim context-window space while keeping the important gist. It is lossy by design.
Read definition →