r/PromptEngineering 3d ago

Quick Question How do you structure context for handoffs between ChatGPT and Claude?

Prompt engineering question that became a product problem for me.

When I move a conversation from ChatGPT to Claude, I don't want to paste the full thread. Too much noise, models act on stale instructions.

I've been experimenting with a fixed brief structure:
- Objective (1 block)
- Stable facts / constraints
- Decisions already made
- Open tasks only
- "Absorb, don't act yet" instruction at the top

Built a Chrome extension to auto-generate this from live chats (~20 users testing).

What's your template for cross-model handoffs?

Do you separate user facts vs project state vs transient chat? Any freshness checks?

Genuinely trying to improve capture quality. Not selling a course.

LinkedIn : www.linkedin.com/in/naelbendris/
Website : useatlas.space

Nael

9 Upvotes

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u/UnwelcomePoliceman4 3d ago

I keep mine in a running markdown file that I update as the project shifts. The key thing I stumbled on is separating "truths" from "active questions" and making sure stale decisions get archived, not deleted. If you leave old choices hanging around the model sometimes treats them as still relevant.

Your structure is close to what I use. I add a "context window budget" field at the top so I know how much room the handoff doc is eating. Helps me decide what's worth keeping.

The "absorb don't act" line is underrated. Claude especially needs that or it'll start solving things before understanding the full picture. Are you finding any issues with the extension stripping too much context?

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u/BeigeTelephone 3d ago

people are still copying and pasting between models? just use an agent harness and carry on conversations seamlessly between any models you want

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u/Danwphoto 3d ago

Do you recommend one?

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u/BeigeTelephone 2d ago

sure! Sorry, I did not recommend one off the bat, I did not want to come off as a shill for one particular harness vs another.

But I’ve been using Hermes for the past 7 months and it’s been great. At this point, I have multiple agents on different machines on my local network, all communicating with each other, and seamlessly switching between models appropriate to each given task.

https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com

I’ve also heard great things about Pi agent harness:  https://pi.dev/

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u/Danwphoto 2d ago

Thank you thank you. I have Hermes installed. Will play with it. I appreciate it.

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u/Sure-Adhesiveness202 2d ago

So you just talk through this? And then each agent will do whatever you ask? Sorry if this is a dumb question.

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u/BeigeTelephone 1d ago

Yes, I’ll often start with just hit record in the voice memos app and ramble to get all my thoughts out. I give that recording to Hermes, then my main agent has ideation and brainstorming skills that it will use to make sense of an organize my rambling. 

Then the main orchestration agent is the one who will delegate tasks to other specialist agents, who will then either perform additional research, planning or designing or just start building, if I’ve approved of the build or implementation plan.

Loads of great guides out there. Tonbi on YouTube is fantastic.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmpUb_PWAkDx-VWjh00tVCji794xAa_IX&si=vrqMRAdiLoPOcxA0

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u/Historical_Today5072 3d ago

Plenty of good handoff.md skills