# Handoff

> Transfer the active conversation from one agent to a more appropriate specialist mid-flight — passing a context summary so the user never has to repeat themselves.

- **Category**: Agentic AI
- **Subcategory**: Multi-Agent
- **Canonical URL**: https://designpattern.fyi/patterns/handoff/

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## Description
**Intent**: Transfer the active conversation from one agent to another, carrying context across the switch.
**Context**: An agent system has several specialists — tier-1 support, billing, technical, sales — and one is mid-conversation when it realises the request actually belongs to a different specialist. The user has already explained their situation; forcing them to start over would be a poor experience.
**Solution**: Define a handoff tool. The current agent invokes it with target agent and a context summary. The target receives the summary plus the original conversation and continues from there. Loop detection prevents thrash.



## Use Cases
- Mid-conversation routing must transfer context to a more appropriate specialist.
- Multiple specialised agents exist and not every conversation belongs to just one.
- A context summary plus the original conversation is enough for the target to continue without re-asking.






## Trade-offs


### Advantages

- Specialisation without supervisor overhead on every single turn.

- User-visible continuity — the conversation doesn't restart from scratch.




### Considerations & Drawbacks

- Context summary fidelity bounds the quality of everything the target agent does.

- Loop detection is its own code path that must be built and tested explicitly.







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**Reference**: [Original Source](https://www.agentpatternscatalog.org/patterns/handoff/)