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Welcome to Handshake — a local-first daemon that keeps your AI coding sessions synced so you can switch between agents without losing context. Hit a token limit in Claude Code, switch to Codex, and pick up exactly where you left off. Handshake runs silently in the background, capturing everything automatically.

Introduction

Learn what Handshake is, how it works, and which agents it supports.

Quickstart

Install Handshake and make your first checkpoint in under a minute.

Checkpointing

Save and restore sessions at exactly the right moment.

CLI Reference

Every command and flag available in the Handshake CLI.

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Get started in four steps

1

Install Handshake

Install with a single curl command, via Homebrew, or build from source. The binary is a single self-contained executable with no runtime dependencies.
2

Run the setup wizard

Run handshake setup to create the session database, register Handshake with your agents, and install it as a login service — all in about 30 seconds.
3

Checkpoint your session

In any supported agent, say checkpoint this session. Handshake saves the full conversation, git state, and a handoff brief in one step.
4

Restore in another agent

Open a different agent and say restore my <session name> session. The new agent receives a complete handoff brief and picks up right where the previous one left off.
Handshake runs entirely on your machine. No cloud sync, no accounts, no telemetry.