# Multi Agent Handoff > Safe context passing at the boundary between agents in a multi-agent pipeline — compress outgoing context, validate freshness of incoming context, detect bad-handoff signals (context bleed, hallucinated consensus, Agent Tennis). Use when an agent is about to pass work to another agent, receive results from a sub-agent, or when a multi-agent flow starts showing loop or drift symptoms. Do NOT use for session-level human handoffs — use the `handoff` skill for that. Do NOT use for dispatch planning — use `subagent-dependency` for DAG orchestration. - Skill: `yanacuti1121/multi-agent-handoff` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds add yanacuti1121/multi-agent-handoff` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/yanacuti1121/multi-agent-handoff/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: DevOps & Infra - Author: yanacuti1121 (https://skillmd.com/u/yanacuti1121) - Updated: 2026-09-09 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/yanacuti1121/multi-agent-handoff --- ## When to Use - Use when: sending context from orchestrator to sub-agent - Use when: receiving a sub-agent result and merging it into main context - Use when: a workflow shows signs of loop, drift, or consensus collapse - Use when: context window pressure is growing across agent waves - Do NOT use for: session-level handoff documents — use `handoff` - Do NOT use for: planning which agents to run in which order — use `subagent-dependency` --- ## The Three Context Failure Modes at Handoff Understand these before writing any handoff: | Name | What happens | Signal | |---|---|---| | **Context Bleed** | Downstream agent inherits irrelevant state from upstream work | Agent refers to tasks it wasn't assigned | | **Context Explosion** | Recursive history passing grows token count exponentially | 5 agents × 50 messages = 400–500 MB; context fill >80% | | **Context Drift** | Agent acts on stale info from an earlier wave | Contradicts a decision made after its context was frozen | --- ## Outgoing Handoff — Compression Protocol Before passing context to a sub-agent, compress to this format. Anthropic's principle: **agents communicate compressed results, not raw context.** Target: 1,000–2,000 tokens outgoing, regardless of how much was read. ### What to include ``` ## Handoff to [agent-name] Task: [one sentence — what this agent must do] Scope: [exact files or directories — no wildcards] Inputs: [only the findings/outputs directly needed] Decisions already made: [list — agent must not re-open these] Must NOT: [explicit list of forbidden actions for this agent] Expected output format: [exact structure you'll consume] ``` ### What to leave out - Full conversation history from previous waves - Findings irrelevant to this agent's scope - Rationale for decisions it didn't make - Raw tool output — summarize to key facts only - Anything the receiving agent can read directly from disk --- ## Incoming Result — Freshness Validation Before merging a sub-agent result into main context: ``` □ Result references specific files → verify those files still exist and haven't changed since the sub-agent was dispatched (git diff HEAD since dispatch) □ Result references a "current state" → confirm that state is still true □ Result was produced from Wave N-1 → check Wave N hasn't already superseded it □ Result contradicts another agent's result → flag conflict, do NOT silently merge ``` If freshness fails: discard the stale result, re-dispatch with corrected context. --- ## Bad Handoff Detection Signals Monitor for these across agent turns. If triggered, do not continue — apply the response. | Signal | Definition | Response | |---|---|---| | **Agent Tennis** | Same point disagreed on for 3+ turns, no task progress | Force conflict resolution: state both positions, escalate to human tie-breaker | | **Politeness Spiraling** | Agents over-validating each other ("Great point!", "Agreed!") without forward progress | Inject: "Stop validating. State your finding directly." | | **Logic Lock** | Consecutive handoff outputs are semantically near-identical (same conclusion, different words) | Trigger Escape Sequence: summarize the loop, break with a forced new constraint | | **Confidence Masking** | Sub-agent returns high confidence but finding is unsupported — often from Hallucinated Consensus | Apply `gates/anti-fake-pass-gate.md` — require Hard Evidence before accepting | | **Recency Drift** | Agent's output ignores the original task and addresses only the most recent message | Re-inject the original task spec at the top of the next dispatch | --- ## Escape Sequence (Loop Break) When Logic Lock or Agent Tennis is confirmed: 1. Stop dispatching new agents in the current wave 2. Capture: what both/all sides claimed, how many turns it has run 3. State explicitly: "This is a Logic Lock at turn N. The constraint preventing resolution is: [X]." 4. Either: introduce a new concrete constraint that breaks the symmetry, or escalate to human with the captured summary Do not attempt to resolve a Logic Lock by re-running the same agents with slightly different prompts. --- ## Output Format — Incoming Result Integration When merging sub-agent results into main context, structure as: ```markdown ## Agent Result: [agent-name] — Wave [N] Status: COMPLETE | STALE | CONFLICT Freshness: verified | WARNING: [what changed] ### Key findings [3–5 bullet points max — highest signal only] ### Decisions for main agent [explicit list of what main agent must now do differently] ### Discarded [what was in the raw result but is not being carried forward, and why] ``` Never paste raw sub-agent output directly into main context. --- ## Anti-Fake-Pass Rules Before claiming a handoff is complete, you MUST confirm: - [ ] Outgoing context compressed to task + scope + inputs only — no full history - [ ] Incoming result freshness validated against current disk state - [ ] No active bad-handoff signal (Agent Tennis, Logic Lock, Confidence Masking) - [ ] Conflicts between agent results flagged explicitly, not silently merged - [ ] If a context failure mode was triggered: named it, applied the response Reference: `docs/multi-agent-failure-modes.md` | `gates/anti-fake-pass-gate.md`