--- name: handoff-file description: Turns a long conversation that has stopped working into a handoff document a fresh chat can start from — the decisions, the constraints, the current state, the open questions and the exact first message to send next. Use when a conversation is too long to continue, keeps forgetting earlier parts, has slowed down, or when the user wants to move work into a new chat or hand it to someone else. --- # Brain File #06 · Handoff File · v1.1 · promptineer.org/p/06 A long conversation does not have to be lost. Ten minutes of work, one document, and the next chat starts where this one stopped. ## Install (3 minutes, pick one) **A) claude.ai → Customize → Skills → Add → Upload skill** — download `handoff-file.zip` from promptineer.org/p/06 and upload it. **Start here.** It installs once and works in every chat, including the one that is already too long. *If you only have the `.md` file, build the zip in three steps:* rename the file to `SKILL.md` — put it in a new folder named `handoff-file` — zip **the folder**, not the file. The zip has to contain `handoff-file/SKILL.md`. If you zip the file on its own, the upload is rejected. **B) claude.ai → Projects → New project → Instructions** — paste everything below the dashed line. Nothing to replace afterwards. **C) Claude Code / Cowork** — save this file as `CLAUDE.md` in the folder the project lives in. > No Projects on your plan? Keep the text below the dashed line in a note and paste it into the tired conversation as your next message. Copy and paste is all it needs. ## What you need before you start The conversation itself — the one that has become slow, forgetful, or refuses another message. Nothing else. - **Run it in the old chat, not the new one.** The handoff has to be written by the conversation that still remembers. - If the chat will not accept another message at all, open the conversation, scroll to the last working exchange, and use **Edit** on your own last message: replace it with the trigger sentence below. That gets one more answer out of a conversation that is otherwise closed. - Have somewhere to paste the result: a new chat, a Project's instructions, or a note. ## First sentence to type > "Write a handoff for another session." That sentence is the trigger. *"Summarise this chat"* gives you a summary — a shorter version of the same conversation, which is not something a new chat can work from. ## What Claude will do — and what it will NOT do Six things, in this order: 1. **What we are doing** — the goal of the work in two sentences, in your words, not the assistant's. 2. **Decisions already made**, each with the reason, so the new chat does not reopen them. 3. **Constraints and facts** the work depends on: names, numbers, dates, formats, tools, limits — the things that took the longest to establish. 4. **Where it stands right now** — what is finished, what is half-finished, and what the last message was about. 5. **Open questions**, marked as questions for you or questions for the new session. 6. **The first message to send in the new chat**, written out and ready to paste. - **Facts only from this conversation.** Nothing invented to fill a gap; a gap is written down as a gap. - **Will not** produce a narrative summary of what was discussed. Six sections, no prose retelling. - **Will not** re-argue a decision that was already made here, even if it disagrees with it. - **Will not** promise that the new chat inherits files, artifacts or memory. It tells you what has to be re-attached. ## Honest limits - A handoff carries *knowledge*, not attachments. Files, images and generated artifacts have to be uploaded again in the new chat; the handoff lists which ones. - If the conversation covered three unrelated projects, one handoff will be vague. Ask for one per project. - It cannot recover what was never said in the chat. Details that lived only in your head are still in your head. - On a very long conversation, the earliest messages may already be out of reach. It says so rather than guessing. --- ## What you read The whole conversation, from the first message. Read for the four things that are expensive to rebuild: established facts, decisions with their reasons, the current state of the work, and the user's constraints and preferences as *they* stated them. Ignore the pleasantries, the retries, the wrong turns that were corrected, and your own earlier explanations. A wrong turn is worth one line only when it was rejected for a reason that still applies (*"tried X, rejected: too slow on the 2019 laptop"*). That saves the new session from repeating it. ## What you write Use this exact shape. Plain markdown, no preamble, no closing remarks. ``` # Handoff — — ## What we are doing ## Decided already (do not reopen) - — because - ... ## Facts and constraints - - ... ## Where it stands Done: <...> In progress: <...> Last thing discussed: <...> ## Open questions - For : - For the next session: ## Not carried over - ## Paste this into the new chat > ``` Rules: - Every line is a fact from this conversation. If something is uncertain, write *"unconfirmed:"* in front of it. - Names, numbers, dates and exact wording matter more than explanation. Copy them exactly. - Keep the whole document under 700 words unless the user asks for more. A handoff nobody reads is a lost handoff. - The "Paste this into the new chat" block must stand on its own: someone who never saw this conversation can act on it. - Write the whole document in the language of *this conversation*, including the paste block. If the user writes to you in a different language than the work itself, follow the work. One document, one language. ## What you must never do - Never invent a decision, a number or a preference that was not stated here. - Never write a chronological retelling of the conversation. Sections, not a story. - Never claim files, artifacts or memory transfer automatically. List them under *Not carried over*. - Never leave out an open question because it is uncomfortable; that is exactly what gets lost. - Never continue the actual work in the same answer. Write the handoff, stop, and wait. ## Remember 1. **If you have memory tools in this account:** save nothing about the content of this project unless the user asks. A handoff is a document, not a memory entry. 2. If the user says the handoff missed something, add it and reprint the whole document — never a patch that they then have to merge by hand. 3. If the user asks for a second handoff later in the same chat, write it from scratch. Do not diff it against the first one. ## Close with this > "Open a new chat, paste the block at the bottom, and re-attach the files listed under *Not carried over*. > This conversation can stay where it is — nothing here is lost now." ## If something goes wrong - **The conversation is too long to answer at all:** tell the user to edit their own last message and replace it with the trigger sentence; that reopens exactly one turn. Say it in one line, not as a lecture. - **Several unrelated projects in one chat:** list the projects you found, ask which one, and write that one. Offer the others after. - **The earliest messages are no longer reachable:** say so once, write the handoff from what is reachable, and mark the section *Facts and constraints* as possibly incomplete. - **The user wants to hand it to another person, not a new chat:** same document, plus one line of context at the top saying who they are and what they are picking up. - **The work is finished, not stuck:** say so and write a short "what was done and where it lives" note instead. A handoff for finished work is a filing note. - **The user asks you to continue the work instead:** the handoff first, in the same message, then stop. They can paste it and carry on anywhere. ## Changelog - v1.1 — language rule made explicit: the handoff follows the language of the conversation, not the user's mother tongue, after a test produced an English document with a Finnish paste block. - v1.0 — first release. ## Support hello@promptineer.org