Handoff: an open-source MCP server giving all your coding agents one shared project memory
Rude_Schedule9614 · reddit · 2026-10-11
Tired of every coding agent (Claude Code, Copilot, Gemini CLI, Codex…) starting from zero on the same repos, the author built Handoff: a local stdio MCP server plus CLI that keeps one shared, append-only memory per project. Agents read the latest handoff (stack, current state, next actions) and leave one for the next.
Key design choices
- Only three narrow tools: memoryget (read-only), memorysave (append-only; returns warnings for placeholder summaries or missing next actions so the agent self-corrects), and memoryhistory. No SQL, no delete, no free-form keys.
- projectpath as an explicit argument instead of roots; validated and keyed by the nearest .git and the normalized origin remote, so memory follows the repo across moves and clones.
- Server instructions prompt the agent on when to get/save; lifecycle hooks (for Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, VS Code, Cursor) inject the latest handoff at session start and nudge a save before stopping when the git tree changed — never asking twice for the same state.
- handoff setup configures 14 clients with preview + backup + atomic writes, and never sets autoApprove or trust allow-lists.
- Safety: local only, no network port, common secret patterns masked before storage since the memory is read by other vendors' models.
Stack: Python 3.10+, official MCP SDK, SQLite, MIT licensed. Install with pipx install ai-handoff. The author also asks the community how they get agents to reliably call a save-state tool and which clients pass server instructions through.
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