A handoff document is a prompt. The receiver has no access to this conversation, so everything it needs must be on the page — and everything it does not need competes with what it does.

Mode

$mode selects the receiver. Empty means self.

self — the receiver holds your project knowledge. Task state, decisions, remaining work. No codebase orientation.
teammate — the receiver may hold none of it. Adds codebase orientation, skill and tool pointers, and conventions.

Triage

Two passes, in this order. A single pass sorts for precision and loses the subtle context that turns out to be load-bearing — which is the documented failure of aggressive compaction.

Recall. Collect everything relevant. Over-collect; nothing is cut yet.
Precision. Cut what the categories below mark as noise, and only then.