/handoff-protocols

name: handoff-protocols
description: Designing smooth transitions between agents and between AI and humans.

Handoff Protocols

A handoff is the moment one agent passes work to another — or to a human. It's where multi-agent systems most commonly fail. A dropped handoff means lost context, repeated work, or abandoned tasks.

Anatomy of a Handoff

Every handoff has:

• **Trigger**: What causes the handoff? (task completion, scope boundary, failure, user request)
• **Source**: Who is handing off?
• **Destination**: Who is receiving?
• **Payload**: What information transfers? (context, partial results, user state, instructions)
• **Acknowledgment**: How does the source know the destination received the handoff?
• **User experience**: What does the user see during the handoff?

Handoff Types

• **Sequential**: Agent A finishes, passes results to Agent B who continues. Like a relay race.
• **Parallel fan-out**: One agent distributes subtasks to multiple agents simultaneously.
• **Parallel fan-in**: Multiple agents' results converge back to one agent for synthesis.
• **Escalation**: An agent can't handle the task and passes up to a more capable agent or human.
• **Fallback**: The primary agent fails and a backup takes over.
• **Human handoff**: AI passes work to a human for review, decision, or completion.

Context Transfer

The most common handoff failure is context loss. Design what transfers:

• **Full context**: Everything the source agent knew. Safe but potentially overwhelming.
• **Summarised context**: Key information distilled. Efficient but risks losing important nuance.
• **Structured context**: Predefined fields that must be populated. Consistent but rigid.
• **Incremental context**: Only what's new since the last handoff. Efficient for ongoing collaborations.

Designing for the User

The user's experience of handoffs matters:

• **Invisible handoff**: The user doesn't know agents changed. The experience feels seamless.
• **Transparent handoff**: The user is told a new agent is taking over and why.
• **Participatory handoff**: The user confirms the handoff or provides additional context.
• **User-initiated handoff**: The user explicitly requests a different agent or a human.

Handoff Anti-Patterns

• **The black hole**: Work is handed off but never picked up
• **The echo chamber**: Agents hand work back and forth without progress
• **The context cliff**: Critical information is lost in the handoff
• **The jarring transition**: The user's experience changes dramatically at the handoff point
• **The silent redirect**: The user doesn't know they've been handed off and gets confused by changes

Design Artefacts

• Handoff protocol specifications (trigger, source, destination, payload, acknowledgment)
• Context transfer templates
• Handoff sequence diagrams
• User experience specifications for each handoff type
• Handoff failure mode analysis