Hand off a spec to Claude Code without losing context

The single biggest reason coding agents produce wrong-but-confident output: they're given a one-line task with none of the surrounding intent. Pathmode fixes the handoff. The same spec your team reviewed becomes the prompt your agent sees.

The input

A finished IntentSpec — anchored to evidence, with outcomes, edge cases, and verification criteria. The kind of spec you'd be comfortable handing to a senior engineer.

The flow

1. Open the Export to Agent modal. Every IntentSpec has an Export to Agent button in the Spec panel.

2. Choose your destination and mode. Three destinations: Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex. Two modes: Execute (implement the spec end-to-end) or Draft (review the spec and find gaps, no code). Format toggle: markdown or JSON. The modal also copies a native instruction-file section for each destination: CLAUDE.md for Claude Code, AGENTS.md for Codex and modern Cursor.

3. Copy the prompt. The export includes:

• The objective and goal
• Linked evidence items (the actual user quotes, not just summaries)
• All outcomes with their verification criteria
• Edge cases as explicit "must handle" requirements
• Constraints and out-of-scope notes

4. Paste into your agent. In Claude Code, that's claude followed by paste. For a wired setup instead of copy-paste, install the Pathmode plugin once (/plugin marketplace add pathmodeio/claude-plugin, then /plugin install pathmode@pathmode): it registers the MCP server and skills, and the agent pulls intent live from then on.

The output

An agent run that:

• Doesn't invent requirements that weren't in the spec
• Asks fewer clarifying questions because the spec already grappled with the obvious ones
• Produces verification-ready output because the success criteria were part of the prompt
• Stays in scope because constraints were spelled out

Why this works better than copy-pasting a PRD

PRDs are written for humans. They lean on shared team context — the implicit "everyone knows we don't support multi-tenant yet" stuff. Agents have no such context.

The Pathmode export reformats your spec into agent-shaped language: evidence as quoted excerpts, outcomes as testable assertions, edge cases as enumerated requirements. Same intent, agent-readable surface.

Try it yourself

1. Open any finished IntentSpec in Pathmode
2. Click Export to Agent → Claude Code, pick Execute or Draft
3. Paste into your terminal (or install the plugin for live MCP access)
4. Compare the agent's output to a run with just a one-line task description

Related

• Playbook: The Anatomy of an Agent-Ready Spec
• Use case: Let your agent pull intent live with the Pathmode MCP server
• Use case: Generate a PR description from the linked IntentSpec