The /finish Protocol: Two-Phase End-of-Session System for AI Coding Assistants

Defensive publication describing the /finish protocol, a two-phase end-of-session architecture for AI coding assistants. Phase 1 (mechanical) handles backup, git operations, and context gathering via deterministic bash automation at zero AI token cost. Phase 2 (intelligent) uses parallel multi-agent orchestration (Haiku for analysis, Sonnet for synthesis) to update project documentation and cross-session memory. The architecture achieves 4x speed improvement and 75% cost reduction compared to single-agent approaches by separating deterministic operations from AI reasoning.