Context & Handoff

The centerpiece pillar. Three complementary mechanisms keep context light across sessions.

Handoff documents

A compact (<120 line) markdown doc per session, stored in .claude/handoffs/. It records, in order:

1. The carved Goal
2. What’s Done
3. The ordered Next steps
4. Open questions / blockers
5. Context pointers — the few files worth reading
6. A Do NOT list — anti-scope-creep plus expensive operations to avoid

A stable current.md pointer always references the latest handoff so CLAUDE.md can import a fixed path.

Auto-load on session start

A SessionStart hook (matcher startup|resume) reads current.md; if its status is not done, it injects the handoff as the session’s initial context — so the new session resumes from the Next list and respects Do NOT without re-reading the codebase.

Task carving

Each session is scoped to one module/feature task. The handoff’s “Context pointers” list is the only required reading. This is the lever that keeps context light: agents start from the pointers, not a repo-wide scan.

The loop

carve task → work → /transcend-handoff captures Next + pointers
          → next SessionStart re-injects → resume cheaply

An advisory Stop hook reminds you to write the handoff if files changed but current.md wasn’t updated this session. The commands involved — /transcend-handoff and /transcend-resume — are documented in Skills & Commands.