Handoff MCP v0.43 through v0.47 is out, along with Handoff VSCode extension v0.15.

In v0.38–0.42 we completed the requirement lifecycle: drafting, decomposition, approval, verification, and reporting. These five releases extend coverage across the full project lifecycle — structured brainstorming, milestone-based project management, pixel-level GUI verification, PDF document export, interactive specification design, and ISO-standard test specification generation.

Structured Brainstorming — brainstorm-loop (v0.43)

A structured approach to the "what to build" phase. Through interactive dialogue, the system explores design topics while a coverage tracker monitors which discussion points remain unaddressed.

As the dialogue progresses, multiple AI agents run parallel investigations:

Technical investigator — researches feasibility and constraints of the proposed technology stack
Regulatory investigator — examines relevant regulations (data privacy, payment compliance, etc.)
Adversarial reviewer — evaluates all findings to identify project-stopping risks

Results are consolidated into a final report that feeds directly into /requirement-loop (requirements authoring), creating a seamless pipeline from brainstorming to structured requirements.

Milestone Management (v0.44)

Projects can now be broken into milestones with full lifecycle tracking.

Lifecycle states: planning → active → frozen → released / cancelled. Scope changes in frozen state trigger warnings
Dependencies: ordering constraints between milestones with automatic cycle detection
Scheduling integration: auto_schedule respects milestone deadlines and warns when tasks exceed them
Dashboard integration: per-milestone task completion rates and requirement coverage
Milestone reports: schedule status, task list, effort summary, bug counts, requirement coverage, GUI verification summary, and schedule risk analysis

Intra-Day Task Packing (v0.46)

Small tasks are packed into the same day instead of occupying one day each. One hundred 0.5-hour tasks schedule into roughly 7 days, not 100.

GUI Verification — Pixel-Level Comparison (v0.44)

Turn "something looks off" into measurable numbers.

Attach a mock image with viewport and capture_method to a requirement item
trace_tasks auto-generates [VRT]-labeled verification tasks
Compare golden images against implementation screenshots pixel-by-pixel (pixelmatch)
Differences are highlighted in magenta on a diff image
The gui-visual-verifier agent determines whether each difference is an intentional change or a regression

Results are recorded as structured VrtEvidence linked to the traceability chain.

PDF Document Export (v0.45–v0.46)

handoff_doc_export produces PDFs from managed documents.

Export pattern	Use case
Single document	Export one spec or design document
Bundle	Merge related documents into a single file
Document tree	Export a parent and its descendants in hierarchy
Task-linked	Bundle all documents related to a task
Scoped	Filter by layer, doc type, milestone, or tags

Mermaid auto-conversion: Mermaid diagrams in Markdown are converted to SVG and embedded in the PDF
Requirement metadata visualization: enrich: true adds priority badges, implementation status, and coverage bars
Bundled Typst (v0.46): the PDF layout engine is bundled in the binary — no separate installation needed
Report engine: generate daily, milestone, quarterly, and annual reports

Specification Design Workflow — spec-loop (v0.45)

An interactive workflow for the design phase between brainstorming ("what to build") and requirements ("what to satisfy") — the "how to build" step.

Phase	Content
1. Architecture design	System architecture diagram in Mermaid
2. GUI design	Per-screen HTML mocks + screen transition stateDiagram
3. Use case analysis	Normal, alternative, and exception flows + sequenceDiagrams
4. Review and approval	Review and approve each phase's deliverables

If a brainstorm report exists, spec-loop picks it up automatically.

ISO-Standard Test Specification Generation (v0.47)

handoff_trace_scaffold auto-generates test specifications aligned with ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-3. Each generated item includes:

Field	Content
objective	What the test verifies
preconditions	Required state before testing
steps	Step-by-step procedure
expected_result	Expected outcome
postconditions	State after testing
method	manual / automated / inspection
environment	Test environment
priority	Test priority

The test-spec-worker agent reads the project's source code, configuration files, and existing documentation to supplement project-specific context. Items where the agent is uncertain are marked (needs review).

This is integrated into the /requirement-loop registration phase, so requirements flow directly into test specifications in one pipeline.

Handoff VSCode Extension v0.15

Test specification display support:

Test method icons: visual indicators for manual / automated / inspection
Environment display: test environment shown in the panel
Requirement → test spec navigation: one-click navigation from requirements to corresponding test specs
Layer filter: filter by system test or unit test layer

Install / Update

npx handoff-mcp-server@latest

If you use it as a Claude Code plugin:

/plugin install alphaelements/handoff-mcp

VSCode extension:

ext install alphaelements.handoff-vscode

See Handoff case studies