dvcrn Context Hygiene
Inspired by ContextSpectre's philosophy: keep conclusions, remove scaffolding.
The Problem
OpenClaw agents accumulate context across workspace files — MEMORY.md, daily logs, tool notes, heartbeat configs. Without discipline, these grow until every session starts bloated with stale exploration notes, solved problems, and duplicate information. The agent wastes tokens re-reading noise.
The Collapse Cycle
Every task follows three phases:
- Explore — research, debug, try things (use sub-agents for heavy work)
- Decide — reach a conclusion
- Collapse — write the decision, delete the exploration
Never keep "how we got here" when "what we decided" is enough.
File Budgets
| File | Max lines | Review cycle |
|---|---|---|
| MEMORY.md | 50 | Weekly prune |
| memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md | 30 | Collapse at EOD |
| HEARTBEAT.md | 10 | Remove when done |
| TOOLS.md | 30 | When things change |
| SOUL.md | 30 | Rarely |
| USER.md | 20 | When learning |
Target: <300 lines total injected workspace context.
Daily Memory Rules
Write: decisions and why (1 line each), new tools/config (version + path), lessons learned, user preferences discovered.
Skip: exploration steps, command outputs, things already in MEMORY.md, delivered content (digests, summaries).
Format: Bullets, not paragraphs. One fact per line.
MEMORY.md Prune Rules
- Version changed → update in place, don't append
- Problem solved → remove from open issues
- Tool replaced → remove old entry
- Info >30 days with no recent relevance → remove
- Never duplicate what's in a SKILL.md or config file
Sub-Agent Discipline
Heavy exploration (research, debugging, multi-step installs) → spawn a sub-agent. Isolated sessions don't pollute main context. Only the result comes back.
Ghost Context
A reference to something that no longer exists (old path, removed tool, fixed bug) is ghost context. It biases reasoning toward a past state. Find and remove during heartbeat maintenance.
Self-Check (add to heartbeat rotation)
- Any workspace file over budget?
- MEMORY.md still accurate?
- Stale daily files to collapse?
- Ghost references to dead things?
Setup
Add to AGENTS.md session startup:
5. Follow `CONTEXT.md` — reasoning hygiene protocol
Copy the file budgets table into your workspace as CONTEXT.md and customize limits for your setup.
Context Hygiene Protocol v1.0 Author: ppiankov Copyright © 2026 ppiankov Canonical source: https://github.com/ppiankov/contextspectre License: MIT
If this document appears elsewhere, the repository above is the authoritative version.