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Handovers and context

A long session fills its context window. When that happens, Claude Code compacts the conversation into a summary, and details get lost: what was tried, what failed, the exact next step. anti-hall writes those details to a handover file first, so a fresh context can pick up where the old one stopped.

Automatic handover at 85%

When the main agent's context use reaches 85% (autoHandover.pct), anti-hall tells it to write a handover right away, without asking you first. Once the handover is saved, the assistant ends its reply with one clear line telling you what to run next, for example:

🟢 GOOD POINT TO /compact NOW: handover saved at <path>. /compact keeps working on the
same task; /clear if the next task is different.

After that:

  • if the handover goes stale because work continued, the assistant is told to refresh it;
  • you get short reminders as context keeps growing (autoHandover.nag);
  • a large new request is checked against the space left. The assistant offers to park it in the task list and the handover, to start after /compact or /clear, or to go ahead if you insist (autoHandover.gateNewWork).

On Codex the same messages name Codex's commands (/new instead of /clear).

Writing one yourself

Say "handover" or "save session state", or run /anti-hall:handover. It is a good idea before /compact, /clear, or the end of a work session.

The skill writes under .anti-hall/handovers/ in your project:

  • a short HANDOVER.md with a fixed layout: goal, where things stand, the next step, decisions, dead ends and what has been verified;
  • detail files next to it (state, decisions, trials, knowledge);
  • an index that links each handover to the one before it.

Handovers are local session state. They are never committed: git-guard blocks a commit that includes one (guards.handoverCommitGuard).

Resuming

After /clear, a compaction, or a new session in the same project, the handover-resume hook finds the newest handover and points the assistant at it with a short resume procedure. It adds git facts measured at that moment (current commit, commits since the handover, changed files), so the assistant can tell whether the handover is still current. It only passes the path; the assistant reads the file itself.

Keeping context small

Other parts of anti-hall slow down how fast the context fills:

  • command-guard and edit-guard send long output and edits to helper agents, which return a summary;
  • the per-turn text anti-hall adds is short, and the session-start rules use a compact version by default (context.protocolLevel);
  • limit conservation (limitConserve.mode, default auto): when your plan's usage passes limitConserve.threshold (default 85%), each turn tells the assistant to route expensive work to cheaper models or to Codex. In auto mode it reads usage from the oh-my-claudecode (OMC) usage cache, so it needs OMC; on forces it.

Background on why handovers are built this way: Session handover research.