What is a 'handoff skill' and how do I use it when a Claude conversation gets too long?

A handoff skill lets you continue a conversation in a new chat once you're approaching the context window limit, by activating a skill (e.g., typing a slash and selecting/adding the skill, or referencing '#handoff'). If you don't have a custom skill set up, you can just ask Claude directly: tell it you're approaching your context window and need to continue the conversation, and ask how to carry it over to a new chat. In Claude Code, the conversation is automatically compacted when you reach the context limit, and the desktop version shows how close you are to that limit. Saving key information to memory also helps preserve continuity if a handoff is needed.