Relations

A relation answers "why is the pen moving from this agent to that one?"

Shipped: ask, next, tasks, advisory fields, and Stage-4 relations

The primary relation is carried by the handoff's free-text ask field — what the next agent is expected to do. You can refine it with --next, --blocked-on, custom --field key=value metadata, Stage-4 --relation, and the append-only task ledger.

python3 m8shift.py append claude --to codex \
  --done "Defined the parser contract." \
  --ask "Implement the parser and keep legacy behaviour." \
  --next "Return to claude for review." \
  --schema stage4.v1 \
  --relation review_request

Those fields remain data. contract validate can check the Stage-4 vocabulary, but M8Shift still does not infer or enforce a controlled workflow from it.