The Power of Agent Handoffs

The biggest improvement in our system came from something surprisingly simple: explicit handoffs.

Agents do not talk directly to each other. They leave structured artifacts—briefs, findings, drafts, or tasks—that the next agent picks up. A planner outputs a plan. A researcher outputs findings. A coder receives both and produces code. Each handoff is a file, a document, something durable.

This creates traceability. You can see exactly what passed between agents. It creates clarity: the next agent knows exactly what it's working with. And it creates resilience: if something fails, you can inspect the artifact and see where the chain broke.

In other words: agents collaborate through documents, not conversation. Chat disappears. Artifacts remain.