Strategic Compact

Strategic Compact Skill

When This Activates

You should consider compaction when:

• Context usage exceeds 50% (check /cost)
• Switching between unrelated tasks
• After completing a major milestone
• Before starting a complex new investigation

Decision Tree

At 50% context:

• If current task is nearly done → finish first, then compact
• If starting new task → compact NOW with summary of completed work
• If in middle of debugging → save current hypotheses, then compact

At 70% context:

• MANDATORY compact. No exceptions.
• Before compacting, dump current state to a TODO or scratchpad file

At 85%+ context:

• /clear and restart. Compaction at this point loses too much.
• Use session handoff file for continuity

Compact Instructions Template

When running /compact, use this format:

/compact Preserve: [list key files modified], [current task and progress], [decisions made], [test commands used], [any error messages being investigated]. Discard: [exploration tangents], [rejected approaches], [file contents already committed].

Recovery After Compact

After compaction, immediately:

1. Re-read the 2-3 most important files for current task
2. Check git status to see what was changed
3. Run tests to confirm current state
4. Resume from where compaction happened