on-call-handoff-patterns Skill for Claude: What It Does and How to Install It

Makes Claude write on-call shift handoffs: active incidents, open investigations, recent changes and who to call.

Installs: 10.5K; on skills.sh
Stars: 42.1K; on GitHub
Files: 1; besides SKILL.md
Updated: Oct 2026; last repo commit

This is a handoff guide from wshobson's agents collection. SKILL.md names five parts of a handoff (active incidents, ongoing investigations, recent changes, known issues, upcoming events) and a 30 minute overlap: 15 minutes to write the document and 15 for a sync call.

The three templates are in references/details.md: a full shift handoff, a quick async handoff and a mid-incident handoff. Five troubleshooting cases in SKILL.md cover things like timezone gaps and a missed issue.

Good for

On-call engineers writing an end-of-shift summary
Incident commanders handing an incident to a fresh person
Team leads onboarding people to the rotation
Teams cleaning up inconsistent handoff documents

Install on-call-handoff-patterns

Claude Code

Copy this prompt.

Install the on-call-handoff-patterns skill in Claude Code. Run this command:

/plugin marketplace add wshobson/agents
/plugin install incident-response@claude-code-workflows

Then check that it loaded and tell me how to use it.

2
Paste it into Claude Code. It shows the change and asks before running it.

Pick one route. The plugin routes install the whole incident-response plugin: 6 agents, 2 commands and 4 skills (counted from the plugin folder in the repo tree, which has no hooks or MCP config files). The skills-only routes install just this skill, with no agents or commands.

Built from the package data we hold. Not yet tested by us. Source.

What's in the skill

When it loads

Master on-call shift handoffs with context transfer, escalation procedures, and documentation. Use this skill when transitioning on-call responsibilities between engineers and ensuring the incoming responder has full situational awareness, when writing a shift summary that captures active incidents, ongoing investigations, and recent changes, when handing off mid-incident so a fresh engineer can take over the incident commander role without losing context, when onboarding a new engineer to the on-call rotation for the first time, or when auditing and improving the quality of existing handoff processes across teams.

Sections in SKILL.md

When to Use This Skill
Core Concepts
1. Handoff Components
2. Handoff Timing
Templates and detailed worked examples
Troubleshooting
Related Skills

Key facts

Author: wshobson (repo owner)
License: MIT
Installs on skills.sh: 10,534 (Nov 2, 2026)
GitHub stars: 42,081 for the whole wshobson/agents repo (Nov 2, 2026)
Last repo commit: Oct 30, 2026
What it includes: 2 files including SKILL.md: references/details.md (3 handoff templates). No scripts
skills.sh audits: Gen Agent Trust Hub: pass; Socket: pass; Snyk: pass (Nov 2, 2026)
Part of: The incident-response plugin (version 1.4.1) in wshobson/agents. Counted from the plugin folder: 6 agents, 2 commands and 4 skills
Works in: Claude Code, Codex CLI, Cursor, OpenCode, Antigravity CLI, GitHub Copilot and Pi, per the README. Skills-only installers ask which tool you use

What it includes

Active incidents, ongoing investigations, recent changes, known issues, upcoming events
Handoff components
30 minutes of overlap, split between writing the document and a sync call
The incoming engineer also spends 5 minutes verifying alerting.
Handoff timing
Full document with checklists for the outgoing and incoming engineer
Write · Template 1: Shift handoff document
Short TL;DR, watch list, recent and upcoming items
Write · Template 2: Quick handoff (async)
Current state, what we know, what we've done, what needs to happen, key people
Write · Template 3: Incident handoff
Five cases, such as an incomplete document or no overlap because of timezones
Troubleshooting

From the official docs

Questions

How do I install on-call-handoff-patterns?

Use the install box at the top of this page. It offers the incident-response plugin and two skills-only commands. Pick a skills-only command if you want just this skill without the plugin's other parts.

What does the on-call-handoff-patterns skill do?

It gives Claude templates for on-call shift handoffs. Claude uses them to draft a handoff document, a quick async note or a mid-incident handoff from what you tell it.

What if my team is in different timezones?

SKILL.md's troubleshooting section says to fall back to the async quick handoff (Template 2) and add a short Loom or voice memo that walks through the watch list.

Does it connect to PagerDuty or Slack?

SKILL.md mentions PagerDuty and Slack as places to fire a test alert and to link handoffs, but the folder bundles no scripts. Claude writes the text for you to use.

Should I install the whole incident-response plugin?

Only if you want the rest. The plugin folder holds 6 agents, 2 commands and 4 skills, counted from the repo tree, and the tree shows no hooks or MCP config files in it. The other skills are connectivity-triage, incident-runbook-templates and postmortem-writing, and SKILL.md links the last two as related skills.

Is on-call-handoff-patterns safe to install?

The folder holds SKILL.md and one reference file, with no scripts. It is a set of templates, so the main thing to watch is what you paste into a handoff: keep secrets and customer data out of the document.

Does on-call-handoff-patterns work in Codex, Cursor or the Claude app?

The README documents Claude Code and Codex CLI plugin routes, and skills-only installs for the tools it lists: Cursor, OpenCode, Antigravity CLI, GitHub Copilot and Pi. The install box also has a Claude app zip upload for this skill.

Information

updated Nov 2, 2026

Repository: wshobson/agents
Folder: plugins/incident-response/skills/on-call-handoff-patterns

wshobson/agents skills.sh

Sources

Docs, issue trackers and discussions this page is built from.

Show all 3

on-call-handoff-patterns SKILL.md · github.com
on-call-handoff-patterns references/details.md · github.com
wshobson/agents README · github.com