A long run with Claude Code is bounded by its context window. When it fills the session ends, and everything the model knew about the work goes with it. The next session opens cold. The operator re-explains the project from memory, or lets the model rediscover it the slow way.

ae-handover is the binary that keeps the thread. At the end of a session it writes a numbered document into the project's archive, recording where the work stopped; at the start of the next, it loads the latest back into context before a word is typed. It is the continuity member of the ae-sys harness, sharing the same project config the other two binaries read, and built as a single Rust executable, installed and upgraded independently of the other two.

ae-handover is three small parts. A sequence assigns each document the next number for the project. An archive under the operator's home directory keeps every document, one folder per project. A launcher opens a fresh session with a chosen document already in context.

One thread crosses the gap between two sessions. The closing session writes its state to the next number in the archive. The opening session reads it back: either picked up automatically as the latest, or launched against a specific earlier document by number.

The command surface stays narrow because the work is narrow: report the next number, list the archive, point to the latest, name its folder, or launch a session against the latest or a chosen number. Most days it is one command, opening the next session where the last one stopped.

The archive runs deep. ae-handover's own project has kept a single unbroken thread of state across days and machines, one numbered document at a time.