handoff-contract

Standardize agent task handoffs by wrapping completed task outputs with four required sections: Key Decisions, Artifacts, Status, and Deferred Items. This structured contract format ensures consistent reporting to the orchestrator and prevents pipeline breakage.

The standard format for agent output requires four sections: Key Decisions, Artifacts, Status, and Deferred Items, plus frontmatter name and description for discovery. This structure ensures traceability and auditability of agent work within the orchestration pipeline.

Capture deferred items and key decisions by structuring the final agent output into the mandated four-section contract format. This explicitly guides downstream processing by separating decisions, artifacts, status, and deferred items into distinct reporting sections.

Yes, the agent handoff contract requires frontmatter name and description for orchestrator discovery. Alongside the four required content sections, this frontmetadata ensures the task report integrates properly into the orchestrator pipeline.

Orchestrator pipelines break when agent outputs lack standardized structure because downstream processing cannot locate decisions, artifacts, status, or deferred items. Enforcing a four-section handoff contract prevents this by making all required task results explicit and traceable.