FIELD NOTE 07 / CONTEXT AND HANDOFFS
Give the next task a clean desk.
Keep a useful conversation from turning into a pile of unrelated work.
A long conversation contains decisions, dead ends, tool output, and old assumptions. Preserve what the next task needs without asking it to inherit everything.
“A fresh desk beats a tidy pile.”
Paul’s working notes · September 2026
What it looks like
One conversation for a checkout fix, a design audit, and next month’s research.
Main conversation: scope and decisions. Helper: a bounded investigation. Return: findings, file paths, evidence. Next goal: a fresh session with a handoff.
Put it to work
- 01
Compact at a coherent checkpoint.
In a tool that supports compaction, ask it to keep the current objective, constraints, accepted decisions, evidence, and unresolved questions. Check the summary. Compaction can lose detail; it is not a substitute for a durable source file.
- 02
Start fresh when the goal changes.
Write a handoff, then open a new conversation for a different objective. Load only the relevant notes. A plain chat app can do this with an attached brief even if it has no compact command.
- 03
Delegate an investigation, not the whole project.
If your coding tool supports helpers, give one a bounded question and a specific return format. For example: locate the cause of an export timeout and return the failing path with evidence. Keep key source references; a helper’s summary can also be wrong.
Give this to your AI
Adapt the brackets to your task.Prepare this project for a clean continuation. Keep the current goal, constraints, accepted decisions, relevant files, verification results, and open questions. Separate confirmed facts from guesses. Remove unrelated exploration. Tell me whether this tool supports compaction; if it does not, give me a short handoff to paste into a fresh chat. Do not claim the new session will automatically remember it.
A helper’s separate context does not automatically isolate its files or tools. If several agents can write to the same checkout, assign distinct files or use separate worktrees and coordinate integration.
Carry forward the decisions and evidence, not every turn.
Sources & further reading
Personal counts are from Paul’s prompt-history analysis. Tool guidance was checked against these sources in September 2026. Confirm current behavior in your installed version.