Developer Handoff Without Two Weeks of Discovery
Ville YlläsjärviFounder of RAAVWhen a freelancer leaves or you hire your first engineer, product memory beats Slack threads and git blame.
What the new developer actually needs
A new developer needs the current architecture, open priorities, verification status, and the reasons behind odd-looking decisions. They do not need a tour of every folder.
RAAV exports a handoff package from product memory: goals, tickets, submit history, and founder-approved truth.
Keep CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md for repository rules. Add a work record when the next person also needs to know what was attempted, accepted, and left unfinished.
Avoid the discovery-phase tax
Handoffs become expensive when the rationale has to be reconstructed from commits and Slack. Agent-built products scatter that rationale across even more sessions.
A `raav submit` record is intentionally plain: summary, files, branch, verification, risks, and the next useful action.
First day checklist
Share the product handbook, active lanes, and top three tickets with verification commands.
Have the new developer claim a lane before touching production paths.
Give the new developer access to the same record the agents used. Do not make a second, prettier handoff document that will be stale by Friday.
Test RAAV on a real repo
Request access to a controlled founder cohort. Joining creates no subscription or charge.
Join waitlist