Notes for the next session

Think of it when a session is about to end, or has grown too long, and the work is not finished.

In everyday life

It is like the notes a nurse leaves for the next shift: what each patient needs, what is done, what to watch for. The next nurse does not need the whole day’s story, only what lets the care go on.

One case

An agent spends a day adding text-message reminders to a clinic’s appointment system. It learns that the text provider’s test account sends only to phone numbers verified in advance, so it uses one verified number in every test. The session ends with no notes. The next morning a fresh agent writes a test with a new number, sees no message arrive, and spends 2 hours learning the same fact again.

Notes for the next session
The ideaTell it
Notes for the next session

A short document an agent writes before a session ends, so a fresh agent can continue the work. It says what is done, what is next, what traps were found, and where the evidence is.

Tell it, Steering

Every case

A fresh session starts with none of the last session’s chat. What the last agent learned, the next one either reads in a file or learns again the slow way. A handoff closes that gap. A good one is short: the goal, what is done, what is next, the traps found, and links to the plan, the tickets and the commits instead of copies of them. It leaves out secretsPasswords, keys and tokens that unlock a system. They never go into notes, chats or code..

The word

Engineers call this

handoffA short document an agent writes before a session ends, so a fresh agent can continue the work. It says what is done, what is next, what traps were found, and where the evidence is.

Before you end or reset a long session, have the agent write a handoff. Link to the plan and the commits; do not copy them.

Where this idea leads

Skills that encode it

  • handoff Matt PocockReferences specs, plans, issues and commits by path instead of copying them, and redacts keys and passwords.
  • recall pstackThe receiving side: rebuilds where the work stands from history and live state into a tight current-state brief.
  • show-me-your-work pstackKeeps a decision log, with evidence as pointers, that a later run reads before it adds to the work.