Succession

Succession gives each Claude Code chat a name and carries a handoff — and your memory file — to the next one. Free, from The Continuity Layer.

Your AI gets a name, a job, and a successor.

Succession is a Claude Code plugin for agent work that spans sessions in a git project. A named officeholder takes the seat, checkpoints its work and closes with a handoff. Its successor's script checks the evidence that handoff points at and shows you a counted verdict before the seat is taken.

Half a minute, replayed from six real sessions. The replies are the sessions' own words, cut where marked; the time the model took is left out. tests/recording/ has the same as a cast, as plain text, and the script that replays it.

What the script checks is pointers. A claim in a handoff names a commit, a file in a commit or a log entry, and "pointer verified" means that thing exists. It does not mean the sentence beside the pointer is true: no script can tell whether "fixes the login bug" is so. The verdict tells you which claims rest on something real, and where to look yourself.

Start small

You do not have to take all of it at once.

1. A name. Once the plugin is installed, the next new session in a git project starts with a name, such as Sextant, and keeps nothing else: no charter, no log, no checkpoints, no handoffs. The session opens with its name and one line on how to turn handoffs on, and the name stays for the sessions after it. /succession:seat --name Compass changes it. Free, like the rest of the plugin.
2. Handoffs. /succession:seat turns them on and keeps the name: Sextant becomes Sextant-001, with checkpoints, a close and a handoff whose pointers the next session's script checks. Everything below describes this.

Install

In a Claude Code session, version 2.1.275 or later:

/plugin install succession --marketplace thecontinuitylayer/succession

This line is taken from Claude Code's documentation and has not been run by us yet; the two lines below have. Claude Code shows the source and asks you to confirm it, then opens the plugin's details, where you choose who gets it and install.

With an older Claude Code, or from a script, use your shell:

claude plugin marketplace add thecontinuitylayer/succession
claude plugin install succession@succession-marketplace

To try a copy on disk for one session, without installing anything:

claude --plugin-dir /path/to/succession

Succession needs git and a POSIX shell. On Windows that means Git for Windows, whose Git Bash is what Claude Code uses to run plugin scripts. The VS Code panel has its own plugin screen (/plugins); a plugin installed with the two shell commands is available there too. To remove it: claude plugin uninstall succession@succession-marketplace, and delete the .succession/ folder of a project to remove its record.

If the install fails on Windows with EBUSY: resource busy or locked, rename '...\marketplaces\<name>..clone' -> ..., followed by EPERM: this was seen once, on the owner's machine, with VS Code open on a folder that contained his .claude folder (he had C:\Users open). VS Code's git watcher takes hold of a repository cloned inside the folder it has open about two seconds after the clone, and Claude Code's rename of the fresh clone then fails. Outside the open folder the same command worked. What to do:

• Close VS Code, or open a project folder in it and not your home folder, then run claude plugin marketplace add again.
• After removing the plugin or its marketplace, restart Claude Code before you add it again. Removing and adding in the same Claude Code session failed the same way.
• If a folder whose name ends in ..clone is left in .claude\plugins\marketplaces under your home folder, delete it.

Start

A new session in a git project already opens with a name (see Start small). To turn on handoffs, type:

/succession:seat

The newcomer shows you a one-page charter, proposes a name such as Sextant-001 and tells you what to send to confirm it. That is the whole setup. Everything it keeps is plain Markdown and JSON in a .succession/ folder in your project. There is no account, no server, no database and no network call.

What you get

You type	What happens
/succession:seat --name	The session gets a name and nothing else is kept. The newcomer proposes one; you confirm with /succession:seat --name Sextant, or give the name with --name straight away. See Start small.
/succession:seat	A script checks the pointers in the previous handoff and prints a counted verdict. Then the newcomer proposes a name, you confirm, and it takes the seat as, say, Astrolabe-002.
/succession:checkpoint	A dated note of what was done and where the proof is in git.
/succession:close	The officeholder writes a handoff and a short note of lessons, and the seat goes vacant.
/succession:lineage	Every officeholder so far: name, number, dates, what it did, its last words.
Stand down, Astrolabe	Sent as a whole message, this records a stand-down and tells the officeholder to stop. The record is in the log before the model sees anything. The officeholder is told to start nothing more; you send /succession:close when you want the handoff written.

This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗