Build a Shared Handoff Validation Library

Problem Description

A platform engineering team has multiple agent pipelines that need to validate handoff packets before resuming tasks. Currently each pipeline does its own ad-hoc checks, leading to inconsistent behavior — one pipeline accepts stale handoffs that another rejects, and token validation is missing entirely in some flows.

The team wants a reusable Python module that any pipeline can import to perform standardized handoff validation. It needs to be self-contained (no external dependencies beyond the standard library), well-structured, and cover all the checks that the team has agreed on for their handoff protocol.

Output Specification

Produce a Python file named handoff_validator.py that implements the validation logic. The module should be importable and expose a validation function. Also provide a brief README.md documenting how to use the module.

To demonstrate it works, write a short script demo.py that imports and calls your validator against the sample packets below, and prints the results to stdout. Running python demo.py should produce output without errors.

Input Files

The following files are provided as inputs. Extract them before beginning.

=============== FILE: sample_valid.json =============== { "objective": "Deploy new recommendation engine to EU region", "completed": ["Trained model on EU dataset", "Deployed to staging", "Load tested at 10k req/s"], "unresolved": ["EU data residency sign-off pending from legal"], "assumptions": ["Legal review turnaround is 3 business days"], "next_action": "Await legal sign-off then trigger production deployment pipeline", "risks": ["Model performance degrades beyond 15k req/s — needs autoscaling config"], "updated_at": "2025-12-01T10:00:00Z", "resume_token": "rec-engine-eu-deploy-8xYz3kP1" }

=============== FILE: sample_invalid.json =============== { "objective": "Migrate legacy billing system to new payment processor", "completed": [], "unresolved": [], "assumptions": [], "next_action": "", "risks": [], "updated_at": "2023-06-15T00:00:00Z", "resume_token": "" }