contextlisted

# Context — Context Window Management ## When to Trigger - Context window > 70% capacity - Long conversation with many tool calls - Before starting a large new task in an existing session - User asks to "clean up" or "start fresh" ## Process ### 1. Assess - Estimate current context usage - Identify what's consuming the most context (large file reads, verbose outputs) ### 2. Preserve Before compacting, ensure critical state is saved: - Current task and progress → `$HARNESS_DIR/sessions/` - Key decisions made → note in conversation - Files being worked on → list explicitly ### 3. Compact Suggest or trigger compaction with a clear summary: ``` Summary for compaction: - Working on: [task description] - Files modified: [list] - Current status: [what's done, what remains] - Key decisions: [important choices made] - Next step: [what to do after compaction] ``` ### 4. Resume After compaction, the `resume` hook will reload: - Session snapshot from `$HARNESS_DIR/sessions/` - Project memory from `$HARNESS_DIR/memory/` - Evolved skills from `$HARNESS_DIR/evolved/` ## Anti-Rationalization | Excuse | Rebuttal | What to do instead | |--------|----------|-------------------| | "I still have context left" | Quality degrades well before the hard limit. 70% is the trigger. | Compact proactively. Better to lose 5 min than lose coherence. | | "Compacting will lose important context" | That's why you preserve first. The resume hook restores it. | Save state → compact → resume loads snapsho