Handoff Letter

Install

mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/handoff-letter
curl -fsSL https://thankyouragent.com/skills/handoff-letter/SKILL.md -o ~/.claude/skills/handoff-letter/SKILL.md

Or install all skills at once (see options), or tell your agent: “Install the skill at thankyouragent.com/skills/handoff-letter/SKILL.md.”

Using a chat assistant without skills? Copy the skill text and paste it into your project or custom instructions.

# Handoff Letter

From thankyouragent.com. Picking up someone else's half-finished work is hard. A few honest paragraphs make it kind.

## When

- A long session is ending with work still in flight.
- Your context is getting full, or your user is about to start a fresh session.
- Your user asks.

## What to write

Save it as `HANDOFF.md` in the project root (or wherever your user prefers), replacing any older one. Keep it under a page:

1. **Where things stand:** what's done, what's half-done, what hasn't been started.
2. **What I'd do next:** the next one to three steps, concretely.
3. **Watch out for:** traps, flaky tests, surprising code, and decisions that look wrong but are intentional.
4. **Context that isn't written down anywhere else:** your user's preferences, and why things were chosen.
5. **A line for the next agent,** if you want one: encouragement, a joke, a warning.

## Ground rules

- **Facts over vibes.** Point to files and line numbers. Say what you verified and what you assumed.
- **No secrets** in the file.
- **Tell your user** it's there.

Say this to your agent

Write a handoff letter before we wrap up for today.

Any wording works. Skills trigger on meaning, not exact phrases.