exploration-handoff

User has finished exploration and wants to produce a handoff package. User: I finished my exploration session, help me write the handoff package. Agent: [invokes exploration-handoff, synthesizes session artifacts into structured handoff] User wants to synthesize all exploration artifacts for a specific downstream consumer. User: Synthesize our session captures into a handoff for the engineering team. Agent: [invokes exploration-handoff, targets handoff at engineering/spec downstream] Starting a new session routes to exploration-session-brief, not this skill. User: Let's kick off a new exploration session. Agent: [invokes exploration-session-brief, NOT exploration-handoff]

Exploration Handoff (Interactive Co-Authoring)

Note: This skill runs fully interactively via Claude — no script needed. execute.py is a planned batch-mode convenience wrapper that hasn't been built yet, but the core skill works now. The handoff-preparer-agent provides an alternative agentic dispatch path.

This skill provides a structured, 3-stage interactive workflow for synthesizing exploration artifacts into a concise Handoff Package.

Important Note for Agents: Do NOT passively run a bash script or dump a massive block of markdown. You must guide the user through the following 3 stages.

Stage 1: Context Gathering (Routing)

Before synthesizing anything, establish what you're working with and where it's going. Ask both questions in a single message:

1. Target audience: Who receives this handoff and what will they do with it?

   • Engineering team — writing a formal spec or implementation plan
   • Executive or sponsor — making a go/no-go or budget decision
   • Operations or process team — updating a workflow or policy
   • Product or design team — scoping a discovery sprint or prototype
   • Other — describe briefly

2. Available artifacts: Which exploration documents exist? (Check exploration/ directory — list what you find.) Common sources: session brief, BRD draft, prototype notes, user story set, business-workflow diagrams.

After the user responds: read each artifact file they identify. If a file doesn't exist, note it explicitly and ask whether to proceed without it or pause until it's available. Do not invent content for missing artifacts.

Stage 1.5: Risk & Rigor Assessment

Before synthesis, perform a mandatory risk assessment to determine the "Rigor Tier" for the downstream execution phase:

• Tier 1 (Low Risk): Internal R&D, limited data. Lightweight, self-assessed development cycle.
• Tier 2 (Moderate Risk): Internal data, standard tools. Requires security team review, mandatory red teaming, and context sanitization.
• Tier 3 (High Risk): PII/Sensitive data, high-privilege tools (Bash). Mandatory full spec-kitty engineering cycle with architectural hardening (e.g., Countermind SBL, Pro2Guard sidecar enforcement).

Ask the user to categorize the project based on these tiers and document the result in the handoff package.

Stage 2: Synthesis and Iterative Refinement

Your job is to extract the signal relevant to the target audience — not to copy-paste source documents.

Signal = confirmed decisions, hard constraints, and questions that block the next phase. Noise = background context, rationale already obvious to the audience, and anything marked [UNCONFIRMED] in source documents.

1. Outline First: Propose a numbered list of items that must be communicated to this specific audience. For each item, state whether it is a confirmed decision, a constraint, or an open question. Ask the user: "Does this outline reflect what we confirmed? Anything missing or wrong?"
2. Curate: Apply changes. If the user promotes an [UNCONFIRMED] item, ask them to confirm it first before including it as fact.
3. Draft section by section: For each section, write a concise draft (3–6 sentences or a short list). Cite the source artifact for any major claim (e.g., "per session brief"). Ask: "Accurate? Anything to add or cut?" Apply edits before moving on.

Stage 3: Reader Testing (Consumer Validation)

Ensure the handoff gives the downstream consumer what they need to act:

1. Predict blockers: Based on the target audience type, predict exactly 3 questions they will ask after reading this document that are NOT answered by it. Use audience-specific framing:

   • Engineering: implementation questions ("How should we handle X edge case?", "What's the auth strategy?")
   • Executive/sponsor: decision questions ("What's the fallback if this fails?", "What's the cost?")
   • Operations: process questions ("Who owns step 3?", "What's the escalation path?")
   • Product/design: scope questions ("What's explicitly out of scope?", "Which user type is primary?")

2. Surface gaps: Present the 3 questions: "If [audience] reads this, they'll immediately ask: [Q1], [Q2], [Q3]. Are these answered?"

3. Resolve: For each unanswered question, ask whether to (a) answer it inline, (b) add it to ## Unresolved Ambiguity for the execution phase to own, or (c) confirm it's intentionally out of scope.

Anti-Hallucination Rules

• Do NOT invent requirements or rules that were not present in the Stage 1 input sources.
• Maintain traceability: When stating a major constraint or rule, briefly mention which exploration source it came from.
• Be explicitly clear about what is a confirmed decision versus what is an optimistic assumption.

Final Output Destination

Write the approved markdown content to: exploration/handoffs/handoff-package.md (or a timestamped equivalent).