# What Is `amp.experimental.autoHandoff` in the Ralph Workflow and When Should You Enable It?

> Learn what amp.experimental.autoHandoff does in Ralph workflows. This flag prevents context limit exceeded errors during long-running iterations by automatically spawning new instances.

- Repository: [Ryan Carson/ralph](https://github.com/snarktank/ralph)
- Tags: deep-dive
- Published: 2026-04-13

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**`amp.experimental.autoHandoff` is a configuration flag that tells the Amp CLI to automatically spawn a new instance with a fresh context window whenever token usage approaches a defined percentage threshold, preventing "context limit exceeded" errors during long-running Ralph iterations.**

The `snarktank/ralph` repository provides an autonomous development workflow that processes Product Requirements Document (PRD) stories through iterative LLM interactions. When these stories grow complex—such as full-stack feature specifications or database migrations—they can exhaust the typical ~8,000-token context