By name: handoff description: Compact the current conversation (or a side-topic that surfaced mid-grill) into a handoff document another agent can pick up. Use when a tangent deserves its own task, or to summarize a session for a fresh agent. argument-hint: "What will the next session be used for?"
Write a handoff document summarising the current conversation (or a specific side-topic that surfaced) so a fresh agent can continue the work without re-deriving context.
Where to save it
Check .ab-method/structure/index.yaml first. In an AB Method project, handoffs are a tracked artifact, not throwaway scratch — save to docs/handoffs/[slug].md (the location the index defines). The slug is a short kebab-case summary of the topic, e.g. rate-limit-redis-vs-token-bucket.md.
If the project is not an AB Method project (no .ab-method/), fall back to the temporary directory of the user's OS — do not pollute the workspace.
The spin-off-mid-grill case
The most common trigger here: you are in the middle of a grill-with-docs / grill-me session and a tangent emerges that clearly deserves its own task. Do not derail the current grill. Instead:
- Write the tangent up as a handoff under
docs/handoffs/. - Capture only the tangent — the question that opened it, the constraints already established, the decisions still open, and why it was deferred.
- Tell the user: "Captured
<slug>as a handoff — resume it any time with/create-task-from-handoff <slug>." Then continue grilling the original topic.
What the document must contain
- Goal — what the next session is meant to accomplish (use the passed argument verbatim if given).
- Context — the minimum a fresh agent needs: what's been decided, what's still open, what was explicitly ruled out and why.
- Suggested skills — which skills the next agent should invoke (e.g.
grill-with-docs,tdd). For a deferred-task spin-off, the suggested next step is/create-task-from-handoff. - References — link to existing artifacts (PRDs, plans, ADRs, issues, commits, diffs, the parent task's
progress-tracker.md) by path or URL. Do not duplicate their content.
Rules
- Do not duplicate content already captured elsewhere — reference it by path or URL instead.
- Redact any sensitive information (API keys, passwords, PII).
- If the user passed arguments, treat them as a description of what the next session will focus on and tailor the doc accordingly.