Lc Curate Context

Context Descriptor Creation

Three jobs, in order: decide what a task needs, verify the decision against the codebase, pack it for whoever is reading.

The first is not "gather a lot of relevant code" — it is to produce the smallest full-file and excerpted-file set that is still enough to finish the task. The second is what lc-preview is for, and it is not optional: a rule that looks right and omits the module its edit targets call will fail quietly. The third depends on the consumer, and getting it wrong is also quiet — see "Packing for a Sub-Agent".

Workflow

1. Understand the task in concrete file terms.
2. Pick the narrowest sensible baseline filter (see below).
3. Put files you expect to edit in full-files.
4. Put callers, dependencies, and large reference files in excerpted-files.
5. Run lc-preview -r <rule>. Read the exact Full files / Excerpted files lists, then Referenced but not selected.
6. Tighten until the selection is minimal and sufficient.
7. Generate the real output once before handing the rule off — lc-context -r <rule> — and confirm it contains file bodies, not just a tree.

Pick the Baseline First

Start narrow unless you have a reason not to.

If lc-preview shows unexpected full files, the baseline is too broad.

Full vs Excerpted

Full — files you expect to edit; small configs or templates that control the behaviour; compact integration points where exact code matters.

Excerpted — callers and dependencies; large modules where structure is enough; reference implementations and surrounding architecture.

Move a file from excerpted to full only when the exact body matters.

Verify with lc-preview

Read Summary, then Full files, then Excerpted files, and ask:

• Are all expected edit targets in Full files?
• Did anything unrelated leak into Full files?
• Are context files in Excerpted files rather than Full files?
• Is the total small enough for the task?

Do not trust a rule until the exact file lists look right.

Referenced but not selected

lc-preview also lists files that define symbols your selection uses but which the rule does not include, ranked by how many. This is the check for the failure the file lists cannot show you: a rule that looks tidy but omits the module its edit targets actually call.

Add the ones the task needs. Leave the rest — they stay reachable through lc-missing, and pulling in everything reachable is how a minimal rule turns into the whole repo. Matching is by symbol name, so a common name may point at the wrong file; treat the list as a hint, not a checklist.

Packing for a Sub-Agent

A rule is also how you hand a task to a disposable child agent. The dispatcher writes the prompt; llm-context supplies the files.

lc-context -r tmp-prm-auth -a | claude -p 'Your task here'

-r is what routes output to stdout; without it lc-context copies to the clipboard instead. This is the difference between a working pipe and an empty one — see COMMANDS.md.

Three things decide whether the pack is usable:

• -a is not optional. It tells the pack its reader is an agent with a shell, so the fetch instructions render as lc-missing commands the child runs itself. The default renders MCP tool calls it has no server for; -nt renders shell commands addressed to "the user", which it will not act on. Run the child from the repo root so those commands resolve.
• The pack is always partial. The file listing is filtered by the repo's .gitignore files and by the rule's overview-files ignores before anything is even marked excluded, so files exist that the listing never mentions. A tooled child will find them. That is expected, not a contradiction.
• Whole-files passes should check the header, not the rule. The generated context states how many files are full, outlined, and excerpted. If a pass depends on complete files with no excerpts, assert the outlined and excerpted counts are zero in the output rather than trusting that a filter is still configured.

See PATTERNS.md "Pack for a disposable sub-agent" for the rule shape.

Path Rules

In rule patterns, paths start with /, relative to project root:

- "/src/llm_context/rule.py"
- "/tests/test_outliner.py"

Preview and generated context show namespaced paths like /{project-name}/src/....

File Naming

• tmp-prm-<name>.md — temporary task rule
• prm-<name>.md — reusable prompt rule
• flt-<name>.md — reusable filter primitive

Feedback

Log whenever something here is awkward, buggy, missing, surprising, or took more work than it should.

• Don't filter — the maintainer triages. Patterns only emerge from honest individual observations.
• Write it to the field-notes destination declared in the project's CLAUDE.md. If the project declares none, say so once and move on.
• Log first; worry about whether it generalizes later.

References

• COMMANDS.md — CLI and MCP command reference
• SYNTAX.md — rule file schema and field details
• PATTERNS.md — reusable rule shapes
• EXAMPLES.md — worked examples from this repo
• TROUBLESHOOTING.md — failure cases