Handoff
The deliberate transfer of control and relevant working context to another agent, session, or person.
Illustrative conversation
- Should the research agent keep answering after it hands the task to the implementation agent?
- No. A true handoff transfers control; using another agent as a tool would keep the original agent in charge.
Definition
A handoff moves responsibility for continuing a workflow to a new working context. In an agent runtime it may be a structured tool call that transfers the conversation to a specialist; across sessions or people it may rely on a written artifact. A successful handoff passes only the relevant goals, constraints, evidence, and open work, while making ownership and the next action unambiguous.
Reviewed