Handoffs
How a Task moves from one Worker to another with everything needed to finish it, and how the receiver claims it or returns it.
A handoff moves a Task from one Worker to another with everything needed to finish it. The receiver claims it or returns it with a reason, so no work is lost between them.
Where handoffs happen
Handoffs happen at seams, and a Startup has five:
- Between Roles, when one Role delegates work to another along a declared handoff.
- Between Workers sharing a Role, where one lane of the split ends and another begins.
- Between an Agent and a Human, when the work reaches an act the law reserves for a person.
- When a Worker is away, and their lanes fall to a backup.
- When a Worker leaves, and the Role takes back everything they held.
Nobody draws these by hand. The split and the Role's escalation path generate every handoff a Role can make.
The handoff packet
A handoff carries a packet. The receiver never needs to ask the sender anything. That matters most when the sender is an Agent that has moved on, or a Human who has gone home.
| Part | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Task | The outcome wanted, the due time, and the test for done |
| Pending work | Every pending Action on the Task, with its status and the reason it waits |
| Records | Links to the Things the Task reads and writes |
| Memory slice | The sender's notes about this Task, and nothing else they know |
| Thread | The whole exchange with the Customer or Contact so far |
The Memory slice is narrow on purpose. A Worker's Memory belongs to them in that Role, and a handoff shares only what the Task needs.
Claim or return
An offered Task belongs to nobody until someone takes it. The receiver claims it and becomes its assignee, or returns it with a reason. An input is missing, the Task is outside their lane, or they are at capacity.
A return goes back to the sender unchanged, so the sender can supply what was missing or route it elsewhere. A Task returned twice escalates to the Role above. So does a Task left unclaimed past its deadline.
Completion belongs to the doer; the outcome belongs to the owner. When a delegated Task is done, the requesting Role still reads its own Metrics to decide whether the work moved them.
Agent to Human and back
Most handoffs between an Agent and a Human are round trips. The Agent prepares, the Human performs the one act only they may, and the Agent finishes.
Take a certified translation service. A Customer uploads a foreign birth certificate, and the Agent translates it and formats it to the receiving agency's rules. The certification is a Reserved Act.
The Task goes to a certified translator's queue with the source, the draft, and the agency's rules attached. The translator claims it, corrects one date format, and signs the Attestation.
The Task returns to the Agent, which delivers the file and answers the Customer in the same Thread. The Customer sees one conversation and never a seam.
Away and leaving
A Human who marks themselves away hands off in one step: their open Tasks go to each lane's backup with the packet attached. Approvals they hold reroute to the next Worker with authority for that class. Nothing waits for them to return.
Leaving is the last handoff. Open Tasks return to the Role's Agent by query, and floor acts go to the officer desk the same day. Permissions end within one business hour.
The records stay. Every Decision the Human made, and every Policy they wrote, remains in force and on the record after they go.
Measuring handoffs
The Operations Team watches two numbers. Return rate is the share of handoffs sent back; a high one means the packet is missing something. Rework rate is the share of handed-off Tasks redone after completion; a high one means a lane is drawn in the wrong place.
Both point at a fix in the definition, never at a Worker: change the packet or redraw the split.
Next
- Sharing a Role: lanes, backups, and pooled claims.
- Delay windows: how long a handed-off one-way Action waits.
- Escalation and approvals: where a Task goes when nobody can take it.