Context Handoff Policy

Sliding window context transfer rules between agents.

Sliding Window

Step Distance	Detail Level	Rule
Immediate (1 step)	FULL	All 4 fields transmitted
2 steps back	SUMMARY	what field only, 1-3 lines
3+ steps back	DROP	Omitted

Context-Handoff 4 Fields

Field	FULL	SUMMARY	Content
what	✅	✅	Summary of changes/verification (2-5 lines)
why	✅	❌	Decision rationale (2-4 lines)
caution	✅	❌	Caveats, conditional completion (1-3 lines)
incomplete	✅	❌	Incomplete items (1-2 lines, "None" if empty)

Pipeline Stage Input/Output

Builder

Input: TASK spec + dependent TASK result.md context-handoff (sliding window)

Output:

<task-result status="PASS|FAIL">
  <context-handoff from="builder" detail-level="FULL">
    <what>Changes made</what><why>Rationale</why><caution>Caveats</caution><incomplete>Incomplete items</incomplete>
  </context-handoff>
</task-result>

Verifier

Input: TASK spec + Builder context-handoff (FULL)

Output:

<task-result status="PASS|FAIL">
  <context-handoff from="verifier" detail-level="FULL">
    <what>Verification results</what><why>Judgment rationale</why><caution>Manual checks needed</caution><incomplete>Items that could not be verified</incomplete>
  </context-handoff>
</task-result>

Committer

Input: Verifier context-handoff (FULL) + Builder context-handoff (SUMMARY) + progress.md (gate)

Processing:

1. progress.md gate: exists + Status=COMPLETED + Files changed is not empty
2. Gate passed → write result.md + git commit
3. Gate failed → return FAIL (triggers scheduler retry)

Output: → {REFERENCES_DIR}/file-content-schema.md § 4 reference

Inter-TASK Dependency Transfer

• Immediate dependent TASK: context-handoff FULL (all 4 fields)
• 2 steps back: SUMMARY (what only)
• 3+ steps back: DROP

Scheduler Dispatch

<!-- Verifier: Builder FULL -->
<dispatch to="verifier">
  <context-handoff from="builder" detail-level="FULL">...</context-handoff>
</dispatch>

<!-- Committer: Verifier FULL + Builder SUMMARY -->
<dispatch to="committer">
  <context-handoff from="verifier" detail-level="FULL">...</context-handoff>
  <context-handoff from="builder" detail-level="SUMMARY"><what>...</what></context-handoff>
</dispatch>

<!-- Next TASK Builder: dependency distance applied -->
<dispatch to="builder" task="TASK-YY">
  <previous-results>
    <context-handoff from="prev-task" task="TASK-XX" detail-level="FULL">...</context-handoff>
    <context-handoff from="prev-prev-task" task="TASK-WW" detail-level="SUMMARY"><what>...</what></context-handoff>
  </previous-results>
</dispatch>

Committer Retry

1. Failure cause: progress.md not found / Status≠COMPLETED / No files changed
2. Re-dispatch to builder including existing progress.md
3. Maximum 2 retries (3 attempts total). 3 failures → TASK FAILED, pipeline halted