Help/Recipes/Switching between agents
Resume where I left off
In any agent.
- For
- Anyone picking up work that they, a teammate or another agent left off
- When
- The first minute of a session
- Takes
- Under a minute of agent time
- You get
- A short brief in chat (where it stands, what changed, what needs you, the next step) and an agent that waits for your go
This is the other half of Recipe: hand off to another agent. It also works from a parked session or a repo snapshot when there is no handoff.
Resume <topic> from onecell. If I give you a link, start there. 1. Find the latest handoff, parked session or snapshot for <topic> with search, and read it with get_document. Call recall for the project, and list_decisions for its cell to see what is still open. 2. Check the note against reality before trusting it: the current branch, git status, and anything merged or changed since the note was written. 3. Reply in a few lines: - where it stands - what changed since the note - what needs me: open questions and proposed decisions - the next step you propose Don't start work until I say go. 4. When we stop, update the same handoff document instead of writing a new one, so there is one record of the work.
What your agent does
Finds the latest note
search and get_document find the handoff, parked session or snapshot, wherever it was written and by whichever agent.Loads what else onecell knows
recall brings back remembered facts about the project; list_decisions shows what is still proposed.Checks the note against the repo
The branch, uncommitted changes and anything merged since. A handoff can be out of date; the agent says so rather than acting on it.Briefs you and waits
Where it stands, what changed, what needs you, and the next step it proposes. Nothing happens until you say go.Keeps one record
At the end of the session it updates the same handoff, so the next resume starts from the latest state.
What you get back
Open the full example →A briefing for Tally, a made-up invoicing app, picking up the handoff from the Hand off recipe. A teammate had pushed since, and the agent caught it before acting on a stale plan.
Sample resume: picking up the reminders work on Tuesday
What I found
The latest handoff is Handoff: moving invoice reminders to the job queue, written Friday at 17:40 by a Claude Code session. Three of five steps done; next step was to deploy the queue job in dry-run mode.
Checked against the repo
| The handoff says | The repo says |
|---|---|
| Branch reminders-queue, 2 commits ahead | 4 ahead: Lena pushed two on Monday |
| 41 tests passing | 43 passing: Lena added two for time zones |
| Cron script still running | Still running |
| Dry-run deploy not done | Not done |
Proposed next step
Update the handoff with Lena's answer, then deploy the dry run. I haven't changed anything yet; say go and I'll start with the handoff.
Variations
Picking up a teammate's work
Add: “This was <name>'s work. List what you'd ask them before continuing.” Read the proposed decisions with them before you change direction.
No handoff, only history
If nobody wrote a handoff, add: “Use the latest repo snapshot and the git log instead.” The brief is thinner, but it still beats starting cold. Then end the session with the hand-off recipe.
Start of the day, across everything
Replace <topic> with “everything I handed off this week” and ask for one line per piece of work, oldest first. Pick one, then resume it properly.
Tips
- Keep “don't start until I say go”. The minute you spend reading the brief is where you catch a stale plan.
- If the agent finds two handoffs for the same work, merge them into one before going on.
- Works across tools: hand off from Claude Code, resume in Codex or Cursor.