Save Your Claude Context (The Handoff Skill)

Long chats get slow, start forgetting earlier details, and eat through your usage. Most people just open a fresh chat and lose all their progress. This skill fixes that: it packages the whole conversation into one clean handoff, and Claude picks up right where you left off.

Pick your path

New to Claude and using the app or website? Start with Path 1 below. It is a copy-paste prompt. Nothing to install.

Working inside Claude Code? Jump to Path 2 and download the real skill file. Drop it in one folder and you can trigger it forever.

If you are chatting with Claude in the app or on claude.ai, you do not need to install anything. When a conversation starts getting long, slow, or forgetful, paste this in:

Prompt — Context Handoff

You are my context handoff. Package this entire conversation so I can continue it in a brand new chat without losing anything. Output one block I can copy and paste that includes: 1. The task or goal we're working on. 2. Every important decision we've made, and why. 3. The current state: what's done, what's in progress, what's still open. 4. Any files, links, names, numbers, or specifics you're relying on. 5. The exact next steps to pick up. Write it so a fresh chat with zero prior context could continue seamlessly. Don't summarize away detail I'd need. Just give me the block, nothing else.

How to use it

Three steps

1. Paste the prompt into your slowing-down chat and send it.
2. Copy the handoff block Claude gives you back.
3. Open a brand new chat, paste the block in, and keep working. No re-explaining, no lost context.

Want a one-word trigger in the app?

If you do not want to paste the whole thing every time, save this prompt as a custom Skill inside the Claude app and name it handoff. Then you can just type "handoff" and it runs. That is the app version of the exact same file Claude Code users download below.

Claude Code reads skills from a .claude/skills folder. Each skill is its own little folder with one SKILL.md file inside. The top of that file tells Claude when to use the skill, so Claude can trigger it on its own the moment a session gets heavy, or you can just type its name.

Here is the complete file. Download it, or copy it into a new file called SKILL.md:

SKILL.md — Context Handoff

--- name: handoff description: Package the entire current conversation into one paste-ready handoff block so the work can continue in a brand new chat or session without losing context. Use this when a conversation is getting long, slow, or forgetting earlier details, or when the user says handoff, save context, or hand this off. --- # Context Handoff When this skill runs, package the entire current conversation so it can be continued in a brand new chat or session without losing anything. Output ONE block the user can copy and paste that includes: 1. The task or goal we are working on. 2. Every important decision we have made, and why. 3. The current state: what is done, what is in progress, what is still open. 4. Any files, links, names, numbers, or specifics being relied on. 5. The exact next steps to pick up. Write it so a fresh chat with zero prior context could continue seamlessly. Do not summarize away detail that would be needed to keep going. Output only the block, nothing else.

Where to put it and how to run it:

Step 1

Save the file

Download it above (or copy the text into a new file named exactly SKILL.md).

Step 2

Drop it in your skills folder

Put it at .claude/skills/handoff/SKILL.md inside your project so it works for that project, or at ~/.claude/skills/handoff/SKILL.md so it works in every project on your computer. The folder name (handoff) is what names the skill.

Step 3

Trigger it

In Claude Code, just say "handoff" when a session gets long, and it hands you the package. Because of the description at the top of the file, Claude will also offer it on its own when it notices a chat getting heavy.

Save YourClaude Context

Save Your
Claude Context