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

Whoever takes the seat gets a name and a number. The newcomer proposes its name and you confirm it. Numbers are never reused.

1. Sextant-001Last words: “Mind the retries.”
2. Astrolabe-002Last words: “All done, all tested.”
3. Compass-003Last words: “Trust, then verify.”

Those are the three officeholders in the plugin’s own recorded run. One command lists every officeholder so far: name, number, dates, what it did, and its last words. The default names are navigation instruments. To use your own, put a list in .succession/names.md.

At the end of the day, or of the context window, you type one command. The officeholder writes a handoff and a short note of lessons, and the seat goes vacant. The next officeholder reads both when it takes the seat.

Along the way, a checkpoint is one command: a dated note of what was done and where the evidence is in git. It is for people who run long or repeated agent work in a git repository and are tired of starting over.

A claim in a handoff names a commit, a file in a commit or a log entry. Before the successor takes the seat, a script checks that those things exist and prints a count. A claim that names nothing a script can check is counted as “not checkable”.

Astrolabe-002’s last words were “All done, all tested.” Its handoff named a file that never existed and a commit that never happened. The next officeholder’s script reported both as failed.

It checks pointers, not truth. A verified pointer means the commit or the file exists. It does not mean the sentence beside it is right.

/succession:seat

A script checks the pointers in the previous handoff and prints a counted verdict. Then the newcomer proposes a name, you confirm it, and it takes the seat.

/succession:checkpoint

A dated note of what was done and where the evidence 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, and 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.

• It does not check that a claim is true. It checks that the commit, file or log entry a claim points at exists. Claims that point at nothing a script can check are listed as “not checkable”.
• It does not run your tests, or any command named in a handoff.
• It does not write the handoff for you when a session is compacted. You type the close.
• The stop phrase is an instruction, not a switch. It is recorded and the model is told to stop; it cannot force a model to stop.
• The log shows tampering; it does not prevent it.
• It works in a git repository and nowhere else, with one seat per repository.

Claude Code has run the plugin for real on Linux, in headless sessions, and on Windows. It has not run it in a real session on macOS yet. The README lists everything that is not tested.

Succession comes from a research prototype that ran five Director tenures, each handing its work to the next on the record. The plugin is the simple, local version of that handoff.