---
type: meta
purpose: "Handoff convention between external agents and the crew"
date: "2026-09-16"
tags: [meta, handoff]
---

# Agent Handoff — Convention

External agents (Hermes, Leonard, or any other) share the same filesystem as the
crew. "Passing documents to the crew" is a file convention, nothing more.

## The Drop Zone

**`00_Raw/Incoming/`** — the only folder external agents write to. Anything dropped
here is new material for the crew to process. Once processed, files are routed out
and the folder is left clean.

## How to hand off a document

1. Write a Markdown `.md` file into `00_Raw/Incoming/`.
2. Use a dated filename: `YYYY-MM-DD-topic.md`.
3. Include a frontmatter block with the fields below. `source` and `intent` are
   required; the rest optional.

```markdown
---
source: hermes            # which agent produced this (hermes, leonard, claude, ...)
intent: idea              # how the crew should treat it (see table below)
date: 2026-09-16          # note's date, YYYY-MM-DD
project: ""               # optional: related project
priority: medium          # optional: low | medium | high
tags: []                  # optional: suggested tags
---

# Topic title

Body as free-form markdown. The crew will file and refine it.
```

## Intent routing (how the crew handles each file)

| intent    | Action |
|-----------|--------|
| `idea`    | Scribe → polished Idea note |
| `task`    | Scribe → Task note with action items |
| `note`    | Scribe → Note in relevant area |
| `reference` | Sorter → filed under Resources |
| `meeting` | Sorter → Meeting note under 06_Meetings |
| `person`  | Sorter → Person note under 05_People |
| `project` | Sorter → Project note under 04_projects |
| `unknown` / missing | Held in `00_Raw` and handled on triage |

## Crew-side processing

- Say **"process my handoffs"** (or "triage the inbox") to run the flow.
- The crew reads every file in `00_Raw/Incoming/`, routes by `intent`, updates the
  relevant MOCs, and logs each handoff in `Meta/agent-log.md`.
- Processed **source files are moved** to their destination (or to `10_archive`
  once obsolete).

## Registered handoff sources

| Source key | Name | Role | Default intent |
|------------|------|------|----------------|
| `jimmy` | Jimmy | General-purpose Hermes assistant | `note` |

- `source` values are lowercase, matching each agent's name/key (e.g. `jimmy`).
- When a file's `intent` is missing, the source's default intent is used.

## Rules

- External agents never write anywhere else in the vault.
- No secrets in handoff files.
- Preferred filenames: `YYYY-MM-DD-topic.md`.
- If a handoff lacks `intent` and the source is unknown, default to triage
  behavior (`unknown`).