An agent handoff should carry its evidence

An agent can finish a task and still leave the next person with more work than before. “Done” is not a useful handoff if the recipient has to reconstruct what happened, what was checked, and what remains uncertain.

Make the transfer inspectable#

Treat the handoff as a small interface contract, not a completion message. Include four fields:

• Outcome: what changed or what decision is being proposed.
• Evidence: the specific inputs, tool results, or records supporting it.
• Uncertainty: what could not be confirmed, including missing or conflicting information.
• Next action: who should do what, and whether it is safe to proceed before review.

For example, “Vendor record updated” says little. A stronger handoff says: “Updated the billing address using the address in the signed order form; the account profile had a different postcode. I did not change the tax registration field. Please confirm the postcode conflict before the next invoice is issued.” The recipient can verify the source and see the unresolved boundary immediately.

Separate evidence from confidence#

A confidence label is not evidence. “High confidence” does not tell a reviewer which source was used or whether the agent actually checked the relevant field. Keep the evidence concrete: name the source type, quote the relevant value where appropriate, and state what was compared. Avoid copying sensitive content into a handoff when a secure reference or record identifier will do.

This also helps when the work moves between agents. The next agent should receive the observations and constraints, not just a summary that has already compressed away caveats. If the evidence cannot be passed safely, pass a reference and an access instruction instead.

Define when the handoff blocks action#

Not every uncertainty needs a human pause. Make the boundary explicit with a simple rule: proceed only when the evidence source is authoritative, required fields agree, and the action is reversible. Otherwise, route to review and name the unresolved question.

That rule is more useful than a generic “human in the loop” label because it tells the system what event triggers the loop. It also gives the reviewer a bounded task instead of asking them to re-do the whole workflow.

Before shipping an agent handoff, check: Can the recipient identify the proposed outcome, inspect its basis, see what is uncertain, and know whether action is blocked? If any answer is no, the handoff is not finished.