Handoff contracts — preserve evidence across specialties

Minimum record

A handoff carries a question to be resolved, not merely a conclusion. Include task/finding IDs, sender and receiving role, current accountable owner, authorized asset, environment/build, timestamp, user impact, expected/observed behavior, evidence paths, attempted work, competing explanations, requested action and acceptance condition. Secrets, customer messages and unnecessary IP/email details belong outside public records.

The receiving owner explicitly accepts the decision scope or returns the missing evidence. Silence does not transfer ownership. R24 resolves a dispute; R25 records any effect on release sequencing.

Contact inquiry worked example

Observed: a synthetic form submission displays success, but the controlled destination mailbox has no observed message. This does not identify the failing discipline yet.

R04 supplies the submitted UI state and request reference. R03 verifies validation, durable storage/queue state, retries and provider response. A rejected or dropped request remains R03's defect. If the provider accepted the message, R03 hands the provider/message identifier and timestamps to R17—not the statement “mail delivered.” R17 examines authentication, queue/bounce evidence and actual authorized mailbox receipt. R02 is consulted only for a supported DNS change. R16 verifies that the event represents the true application state rather than the thank-you page alone. R21 adds failure regression cases, and R26 repeats the critical journey with fresh synthetic data under the agreed independence contract.

The exact states must match the application: received, validated, durably_accepted, provider_accepted, mailbox_observed, qualified_inquiry. Do not implement a fictional state transition where the system has no observation. SMTP semantics and sender guidance support the distinction; the state labels are this library's design.

URL and AI visibility example

R02 demonstrates public transport for the intended hostname. R08 records status, directives, canonical and engine observations. R12 verifies named AI-consumer access and records source selection observations. R10/R13 evaluate whether the page supplies a useful supported answer. R16 reconciles referrals and outcomes. None of these observations can be substituted for another. A crawler access repair can be complete while citation selection remains unobserved or variable.

Shared evidence requirements

Prefer immutable artifacts named by task/run/check, with a manifest and SHA-256. Record the original tool/version, environment, collection time and redaction method. Hash the redacted public artifact separately from the private original. Public artifact paths must not reveal secrets or customer identifiers.

A fact may be documented without executing a test, but the record must identify it as source-derived documentation rather than a local observation. A counterexample should include the original failing case so a repair can be retested. When evidence is inaccessible to the recipient, the handoff is BLOCKED—not silently accepted.

Closing a handoff

The receiving role returns its observed result, scope and the next owner if needed. The integrator updates the dependency graph. The release manager receives one coherent change set, not a pile of conflicting recommendations. Acceptance checks must still correspond to the original business outcome.

Use the handoff template, finding template and contact-delivery playbook.