A human review checklist for AI-generated handoffs
AI can now leave a task behind in a surprisingly readable state: a plan, an implementation report, a QA note, a release summary, or an HTML preview. That polish is useful, but it can also hide an old path, an unsupported conclusion, or an action that no one actually owns.
A handoff should make the next human decision easier. Before it moves into a prompt, commit, release, or meeting, give it one short human review.
The handoff is not the work
A generated document is a claim about the work. It is not evidence by itself. The review is where you reconnect the document to the current folder, task, and product decision.
This is especially important when a task has changed shape while it was in progress. A good-looking final summary can still describe the first plan rather than the code, assets, or release that now exist.
Use a two-pass review
- Read for intent. In one pass, identify the task, conclusion, open question, and expected next action.
- Read for evidence. In a second pass, verify the details that would cause harm if they were wrong: paths, dates, links, versions, prices, status, and ownership.
Keeping those passes separate matters. If you start checking every detail before you understand the document’s point, the review becomes slow and unfocused.
What to check before a handoff moves on
| Check | Question to answer |
|---|---|
| Context | Can a new reader tell which task, folder, product, or release this document belongs to? |
| Facts | Are names, dates, paths, URLs, versions, and numbers traceable to the current source? |
| Status | Does it distinguish completed work from drafts, assumptions, and items waiting for confirmation? |
| Decision | Does it state what should happen next, who owns it, and what would block it? |
| Presentation | Do headings, links, images, diagrams, and HTML previews still work for the intended reader? |
| Safety | Has it avoided private paths, credentials, customer data, or internal context that should not travel further? |
Read in the same order the next person will use it
For a short handoff, the useful reading order is usually:
purpose → conclusion → evidence → open items → next actionIf a document cannot answer those five points without a separate explanation, it is not ready yet. The fix is often small: name the source of truth, label an assumption, move an unresolved item into an explicit list, or add the one link that proves the result.
Leave with an explicit result
Do not finish the review with a vague feeling that the document is “mostly fine.” Mark one of these outcomes instead:
- Ready: the handoff supports the next action as written.
- Needs correction: a concrete fact, link, status, or presentation issue must change first.
- Needs verification: the document is clear, but its important claim still needs an independent source.
A quiet reading surface helps
Editors are the right place to change files. A browser is convenient for one standalone preview. But when one task leaves several Markdown and HTML artifacts in a code-heavy folder, a read-only document view makes it easier to see the set and make the human decision.
MD+HTML Reader is built for that review step: open a local folder, focus on Markdown and HTML, then decide what to keep, correct, or verify before the next handoff.