Superpower: Agent Resurrection

Problem

A coding agent loses its chat window. A new session starts. The next agent must:

• rediscover what the goal was
• find the latest failure
• know what was already tried and failed
• not repeat the stale fix

Without DevCD, this requires the user to re-paste context or the agent to rediscover it from the repository — if the information exists anywhere at all.

DevCD Capability

DevCD derives a policy-filtered continuity handoff from locally recorded events. For the shortest proof, that starts as an Action Packet; the broader handoff and passport layers remain available when an agent needs more context than the first warm-start surface.

The packet is produced from the local event ledger with no remote call and no model inference.

It includes:

Field	What it tells the next agent
active_goal	What the work is aimed at
last_failure	The most recent visible failure
last_attempted_fix	What was tried before this session ended
why_attempt_failed	Why the last fix did not resolve the blocker
do_not_repeat	Explicit list of stale or failed strategies
suggested_next_action	Concrete next step derived from visible events
withheld_context	Policy-safe summaries for signals that were denied

The next agent starts from this packet instead of from zero.

Demo Command

Run the shortest resurrection-style proof against the checked-in fixture:

devcd agentic action-packet-demo --events examples/agentic-action-packet/sample-events.jsonl
devcd agentic action-packet-demo --events examples/agentic-action-packet/sample-events.jsonl --json

Run the broader compatibility handoff demo against the resurrection fixture:

devcd context handoff-demo --events examples/agent-resurrection/sample-events.jsonl
devcd context handoff-demo --events examples/agent-resurrection/sample-events.jsonl --json

For daily use, generate the live policy-filtered Agent Passport from the configured local ledger without passing a fixture file:

devcd context passport
devcd context passport --json --surface coding-agent --pack developer

If the ledger is empty, the passport still renders safely and includes concrete next commands for recording a goal or converting a local pytest failure report.

The expected handoff packet is checked in at examples/agent-resurrection/handoff-packet.md. The expected machine-readable packet is checked in at examples/agent-resurrection/handoff-packet.json and documented by schemas/devcd-agent-handoff-packet.schema.json.

Before/after comparison — shows what a fresh agent knows without DevCD versus with a policy-filtered handoff:

# With DevCD
devcd context handoff-demo --events examples/before-after-agent-continuity/sample-events.jsonl

Read examples/before-after-agent-continuity/without-devcd.md for the baseline.

Agent-switch demo — coding agent and review agent receive surface-specific views from the same local events:

devcd context handoff-demo --events examples/agent-switch/sample-events.jsonl --surface coding-agent
devcd context handoff-demo --events examples/agent-switch/sample-events.jsonl --surface review-agent

Handoff Packet Structure

The broader compatibility packet is rendered as Markdown by the CLI. The resurrection section looks like:

## Last attempt
- failure: make check still fails: do_not_repeat is absent (task/test_failure)

## Last failure
- make check still fails: do_not_repeat is absent

## Last attempted fix
- Added only a Last failure section to the markdown renderer

## why_attempt_failed
- The latest failure happened after the attempted fix, so the fix did not resolve
  the blocker: make check still fails: do_not_repeat is absent

## do_not_repeat
- Do not repeat the last attempted fix unchanged: Added only a Last failure
  section to the markdown renderer

## Suggested next action
- Add a first-class resurrection context before rendering

The packet is produced by _resurrection_context() in packages/devcd-core/src/devcd/slices/ambient_context/service.py.

MCP clients can read continuity data through two read-only stdio resources:

• devcd://context/continuity-packet — domain-neutral Continuity Packet (developer pack by default; includes intent, artifacts, attempts, blockers, do_not_repeat, suggested_next_steps, withheld-context metadata)
• devcd://context/agent-handoff-packet — legacy developer handoff JSON contract (kept for backward compatibility with existing integrations)

To create local events from a concrete pytest failure report before generating a handoff, use:

devcd recipe pytest-failure --input examples/event-source-recipes/pytest-failure/input.json

Policy-Safe Withholding

Sensitive signals — note content, test output payloads, browser URLs — are denied by the default policy. They appear in the packet as withheld_context entries. No payload content is exposed.

Example withheld entry in the output:

## withheld_context
- category: sensitivity
  policy_reason: sensitive events are denied by the default local policy
  safe_summary: notes note_update signal was withheld; only source/type metadata
    is visible as a safe replacement.
- category: payload_content
  policy_reason: metadata-only policy denied full-text payload content

The next agent knows that something was withheld and why — without seeing the content. This is the default local policy. It is not configurable away without explicit changes to devcd.toml.

Boundary

DevCD is not an agent. It does not fix code, make decisions, run tasks, or call external services. It records what happened locally, applies policy, and returns a structured packet.

What the next agent does with the packet is up to the agent. DevCD gives it a verified local starting point.

Related

• examples/agent-resurrection/ — resurrection fixture and expected handoff packet
• examples/before-after-agent-continuity/ — before/after demo with without-devcd baseline
• examples/agent-switch/ — surface-specific handoff for coding vs. review agents
• docs/devcd/policy.md — policy defaults and withheld-context behaviour
• docs/decisions/ADR-002-agent-context-brief-handoff.md — decision record for handoff design