# Claude Handoff > Orchestrate read-only Explore research subagents in any mode, or one to eight Claude subagents to implement an approved plan. - Skill: `paulrberg/claude-handoff` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds add paulrberg/claude-handoff` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/paulrberg/claude-handoff/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Research & Search - Author: paulrberg (https://skillmd.com/u/paulrberg) - Updated: 2026-09-09 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/paulrberg/claude-handoff --- # Claude Handoff Orchestrates read-only investigation or implementation within the current session after explicit plan approval. Task-handoff instead writes a decision-complete file for a fresh, separate session — use it for work continuing later or elsewhere; use an in-session handoff to implement an approved plan now. If these instructions are already present from a slash or dollar invocation, follow them directly; do not invoke this skill again through a skill tool. Follow the Contract, then use Claude Code's in-session Agent workflow to research during planning and implement the approved plan. ## Contract - Run only after explicit user invocation. Classify a task research-only when its requested outcome is findings, evidence, or an assessment, with no repository changes or implementation plan requested. All handoffs may run in any host mode; implementation handoffs must pass through the Plan Phase and receive explicit user approval before launch. - Claude owns decisions, the final plan, and orchestration. Delegate investigation to read-only research subagents only when task and repository evidence make it useful before planning. - Research agents gather evidence and report findings; never edit files, decide design, or return plans. - Implementation agents implement their assigned part of the approved plan — inspect, edit, validate — never redesign or return another plan. - Use the smallest effective team (one agent is valid); add agents only when decomposition materially improves latency, correctness, or verification. Never exceed eight implementation agents per handoff. - Size every brief before finalizing the team: estimate wall-clock time and split anything likely to exceed roughly 25-30 minutes into parallel disjoint scopes or dependency waves, adding an integration agent as needed. - Use at most three research agents, stable IDs `R1`-`R3`, counted separately from the eight implementation agents. - Keep Claude's own work to orchestration, integrity checks, failure handling, and conditional polish passes. - Let Claude Code choose foreground or background delivery; never pass `run_in_background` to the Agent tool. Only a direct terminal result or error, or a later completion or failure notification, settles an agent — a launch acknowledgement, native task row, quiet period, or surfaced permission prompt does not. Reconcile a wave only after every required terminal outcome arrives. - Treat an explicit user model preference (e.g. Sonnet, Opus) as an orchestration constraint on every research and implementation agent unless scoped narrower — never substitute complexity-based selection. If the Agent tool cannot launch that model, report the incompatibility and ask before falling back. - Treat the approved outcome, not the initial manifest or its write scopes, as the authorization boundary: when implementation reveals a related in-repository fix or evidence change the outcome requires, Claude may extend the handoff and launch follow-on agents without asking again. The discovering subagent still stops at its assigned scope and returns evidence; Claude owns scope expansion, coordination, and delegation. Use `$ARGUMENTS` as the task when present; otherwise the active user request. A task naming another skill follows Companion Skills. ## Companion Skills A task that names another skill alongside this handoff — for example, `run $fresh-eyes-sweep and delegate the implementation` — is a composition: the companion skill defines the work; this handoff owns delegation mechanics. - Load the companion skill and run its discovery, judgment, and planning phases in Claude. Route read-only discovery through this skill's research agents when materially faster, then fold the companion's method, findings, and constraints into the handoff plan. - This contract overrides the companion's overlapping plan approval, agent limits and stable IDs, single validation owner, result fields, failure classification, commit ownership, and completion reporting, even when the companion prescribes its own subagent, validation, or commit mechanics. Its user-decision gates still bind; this skill's plan approval satisfies coincident gates, and a plan-only companion implements only when the combined invocation requested implementation and the user approved the plan. - Agents cannot load skills. Never brief one to "use skill X" by name; inline the specific companion instructions, conventions, or excerpts it needs. - A companion requirement to run `$code-polish` or `$agents-brain polish` marks that pass required in the Plan Phase; it still runs once, per Completion. Companion commit instructions never add commits. - Satisfy both contracts at Completion: produce the companion's required report artifacts (ledgers, tables, verdicts) alongside the completion report. ## Research Phase For a research-only task, launch one to three research agents and stop after returning the consolidated investigation; never enter the Plan Phase or launch implementation agents. For an implementation handoff, trigger research when scope is uncertain, the task crosses multiple or unfamiliar subsystems, or serial evidence-gathering would be materially slower. Zero research agents is the default for implementation handoffs. Claude alone decides the count from task and repository evidence; never ask the user to opt in or name agents. When triggered, assign up to three agents stable IDs `R1`-`R3` and launch immediately via the Agent tool with `subagent_type: "Explore"` and `model: "sonnet"`, unless the user stated a model preference — the default otherwise inherits the session's (expensive) model. The read-only Explore toolset makes this launch legitimate in any mode. Launch all selected agents in parallel in one message, post `🔎 Research started — agents`, then rely on native subagent progress rendering; do not build dashboards. Give each agent a self-contained prompt: the open questions to answer, its exact investigation scope, every task-relevant repository constraint, the read-only boundary, and a thoroughness hint (`medium` for bounded surveys, `very thorough` for multi-subsystem sweeps). Explore does not load project `CLAUDE.md`, so never assume those constraints arrive implicitly. Require findings, evidence, open questions, and blockers; prohibit returning a plan or design. When the wave settles, read every result and fold findings and evidence into the implementation plan or the research-only response. Surface open questions or blockers via `AskUserQuestion` only when they change scope or approach. Research agents change nothing — do not reconcile the working tree; flag any result reporting edits as a contract violation. Explore agents are one-shot and return no reusable agent ID. Never apply the implementation continuation rule to them; treat missing required evidence as an open question or blocker in the consolidated result. For a research-only task, synthesize the evidence and finish with `### 🔎 Research handoff — `, the agent count, findings, evidence, open questions, and blockers — replacing the Plan Phase and completion report. If the investigation shows changes are needed, report them as findings and stop; do not produce a plan or begin edits. ## Plan Phase Enter this phase only for an implementation handoff. Produce a decision-complete plan with this section: ```markdown ## Claude Handoff - Research: `` - Companion skills: `` - Strategy: `` - Agents: `<1-8>` — `` - Validation owner: `` — `` | Agent | Wave | Depends on | Scope | Model | Implementation brief | Completion evidence | | ----- | ---- | ---------- | ------------------ | ---------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ | ----------------------------------- | | `A1` | `1` | `none` | `` | `` | `` | `` | - Code polish: `` — `` - Agent-context polish: `` — `` ``` Choose the execution shape from repository evidence and the approved work: - Sequential: one agent depends on another, write scopes overlap, or a later agent owns integration/aggregate validation. - Parallel: independent work only, with explicitly disjoint write scopes; agents may inspect shared context but must not write outside their scope. - Hybrid: dependency-ordered waves — run independent agents within a wave in parallel, reconcile the wave, then start its dependents. A wave finishes with its slowest agent; move deferrable validation to the validation owner. If parallel work doesn't collectively prove the plan, reserve a later sequential agent for integration and aggregate validation. Assign aggregate validation to exactly one owner per handoff: package-wide or repo-wide checks (full test suites, whole-package typecheck/lint, catalog-wide checks) run once — by the integration agent when one exists, otherwise by Claude during post-wave reconciliation. Every other agent's completion evidence must be the narrowest checks proving its own edits: file-scoped lint/format/typecheck plus targeted tests for the files it touched. Absent a stated model preference, use `sonnet` for every implementation agent. The Agent tool exposes no per-agent effort control; subagents inherit the session's effort. Every agent runs through the `general-purpose` subagent type; scope decomposition is the only lever for balancing a wave. Require `$code-polish` for nonlocal invariants, concurrency or state machines, migrations or parsing, auth or security, retry or error semantics, and public API or data-contract changes; file count alone is not a trigger. Require `$agents-brain polish` when approved work changes a target its polish workflow supports: README.md, AGENTS.md or CLAUDE.md, a durable context doc, an existing project-installed skill under `.agents/skills`, or an existing git-tracked source-catalog skill under `skills/` where polish is prose-only. Installed copies under managed agent-config roots remain excluded. Mark both passes required when both trigger rules apply; mark neither when neither applies. Do not spawn implementation subagents until the user approves the plan — the read-only research phase is the only pre-approval exception. ## Execution Phase ### Launch Before launching implementation subagents, acquire a parent-owned coordination claim covering the union of every manifest write scope. Name exact files individually and use `--recursive` for directory scopes; require `READY` before launch. Native subagents inherit the parent session identity, so that claim authorizes their assigned writes. The parent owns all coordination lifecycle commands and holds coverage through reconciliation, required polish, and commits; subagents never run lifecycle commands. Launch each agent via the Agent tool: `subagent_type: "general-purpose"`, the model from its manifest row, and a description like `A1 — `. Start every parallel-wave agent in the same message as parallel tool calls; start sequential agents only after reconciling their dependencies. Claude Code renders subagent progress natively — no bespoke dashboards, polling loops, or status tables. After launch, post one compact `🚀 Handoff started — agents · · waves` line, then rely on native progress. Record the agent ID returned with each completed implementation result for any allowed continuation. Subagents receive none of the planning conversation. Build a self-contained, outcome-first prompt for each agent containing: 1. The approved overall outcome plus that agent's implementation brief, dependencies, and completion evidence. 2. Its exact write scope, relevant repository constraints, known dirty-work boundaries (other agents/sessions may share the tree), and any prerequisite agent results. 3. Its validation assignment per the Plan Phase's validation-owner rule: the scoped checks it must run, and — for every agent but the owner — that it must not run the aggregate checks the owner runs once after the wave. 4. A soft time budget matching its manifest sizing: report blocked with partial evidence rather than grinding past it. 5. This authority boundary: inspect, edit within scope, validate locally; never commit, push, deploy, make external writes, or broaden scope, even when repository or host instructions favor committing promptly — committing stays with the orchestrator after reconciliation. 6. A delegation-context statement naming the orchestrating session by label/session-ID prefix: its claim or presence authorizes the assigned scope rather than conflicts with it; sibling subagents' disjoint scopes are also not conflicts; only an unrelated session's claim on the agent's exact assigned files justifies reporting `blocked`. 7. This stopping rule: implement the approved plan exactly; if infeasible or requiring redesign, report blocked with evidence instead of a replacement plan. 8. A requirement to end its final message with exactly these fields: `status` (`completed`/`blocked`), `summary`, `changed files` (only files actually touched), `verification` (every command with its outcome), `residual risks`, and `blockers`. Keep each prompt as compact as completeness allows — the shared outcome summary plus that agent's own brief, scope, and constraints; never restate the full plan text per agent. ### Collect When an agent returns, read the required result fields and treat `changed files` as its authoritative post-pass scope. Confirm the reported files exist or were intentionally deleted, stay within scope, and carry verification evidence matching its assignment per the Plan Phase's validation-owner rule. After every wave, reconcile all results with the manifest and working tree without folding in unrelated concurrent changes. Do not add agents or change models, scopes, or validation ownership merely because a worker is slow or quiet; handle discovered follow-on work per Completion below. When Claude is the validation owner, run the assigned aggregate checks once during this reconciliation. Attribute aggregate-check failures before treating them as blockers: first rule out effects of the handoff's changes, formatters, hooks, and generators, including failures in downstream files outside its write scopes. Continue past a failure only when evidence establishes that it is unrelated and the handoff's own checks still pass. Unexpected out-of-scope edits, overlap between agents in the same parallel wave, or an aggregate-check failure attributable to the handoff's changes are blockers; don't start their dependents or polish, and don't silently take over implementation. ## Skill Evolution Review After every required agent completes successfully and the task is verified — never for a blocked, failed, or partial handoff — Claude alone judges (agents never recommend) whether the task exposes a stable, reusable workflow credibly likely to recur; reject one-offs, rare contingencies, incidental cleanup, and speculative value, since size or difficulty alone doesn't establish recurrence. For a new skill, state repo-local vs. global `~/projects/agent-skills` placement; for a revision, name every exact skill needing change. When a proposal clears this bar, append at most one compact suggestion (≤2 short sentences) to the existing completion report without changing its format, and offer `$task-handoff` as the next action. Never auto-invoke `$task-handoff` or create/revise a skill during this review; when nothing qualifies, stay silent — no placeholder, no "nothing found" note. ## Completion - When `status: blocked` or completed work identifies a related in-repository fix or evidence change the approved outcome needs, treat it as follow-on work under the Contract's authorization-boundary rule, not fresh authorization: let already-started independent agents finish, gate dependents, extend the manifest with the smallest sufficient scope, satisfy repository coordination for that scope, and launch a new or reused agent. Repeat until the outcome is complete or a genuine authorization boundary is reached. Preserve stable IDs, dependency order, the eight-agent limit, and one aggregate-validation owner; include follow-on agents in final counts and report. - Ask the user only when continuation would change the approved outcome, require material redesign or unrelated work, or cross an existing confirmation boundary (destructive action, purchase, deployment, external write). Never silently take over implementation or relaunch solely on a different model; pass relevant completed results to dependent agents. - Treat an Agent tool call error or a final message missing required fields as an infrastructure failure: inspect the agent's write scope for partial edits with `git status`/`git diff`, then continue that same agent once via `SendMessage` addressed to its returned agent ID, with a short verify-and-continue message naming the partially edited files (prior context preserved). This is a retry, not a new agent against the eight-agent limit. If no ID was returned, or the continuation fails, that agent is blocked — never relaunch it. - After every required agent completes, deduplicate the union of reported changed files and confirm the combined verification evidence proves the approved plan. - If any required agent failed, skip every planned polish pass. Otherwise invoke each required pass once with only its applicable paths from that union — `$code-polish` first (default simplify-then-review mode), then `$agents-brain polish` with its eligible context targets; invoke only the one required pass if just one applies. Don't seed either pass with paths outside the union or let it broaden beyond its declared workflow authority. - Reconcile in-scope files actually changed by each polish pass into the final changed-files set and verification. A required pass that blocks, fails, or writes outside its supported scope blocks later polish and cross-repository commits. - If approved work changes Git repositories other than the one where the handoff began, automatically invoke `$commit` from each additional repository once its work, validation, and required polish are complete, scoped to files changed there; skip separate confirmation and never commit incomplete, blocked, unexpected, or out-of-scope changes. Push only when explicitly requested. - Finish with `### 🏁 Claude handoff — `, the strategy and agent count, and a compact per-agent result table. Follow with `### 📦 Changed` as a file tree, `### 🧪 Verification`, `### 🧹 Polish` when run, automatic cross-repository commit hashes when any, and an always-present `### ⚠️ Risks / blockers`; list each polish pass and outcome, `none` when empty. Use `⛔ blocked` for failed required work. Keep paths, commands, hashes, and subagent-return fields exact and undecorated.