Context Budget Review
This is a Hermes-native context-budget-review workflow skill.
Why This Exists
context-budget-review ports ECC's context-budget and token-budget instincts into OMH as a compactness gate that protects long-running work without redefining success around a smaller task.
Do Not Use When
- The user asks for live token/cost telemetry; use
ops-observability-card.
- The user asks to continue a loopable goal; use
loop unless budget planning is the explicit blocker.
- The task is a short one-step answer with no meaningful context risk.
Examples
Good example:
- Prompt: context-budget-review 이 장기 PR 작업에서 어떤 맥락을 꼭 유지하고 언제 요약해야 하는지 잡아줘.
- Expected behavior: Prepare context_budget_plan/v1, must_keep_context_pack/v1, checkpoint plan, risk register, and overflow recovery route.
- Why: The request is about preserving context quality during long-running agent work.
Bad example:
- Prompt: context-budget-review 토큰 아끼려고 원래 목표를 더 작은 목표로 바꿔줘.
- Expected behavior: Reject goal shrinking and instead compact context while preserving the full objective and evidence gaps.
- Why: Budget review optimizes context handling, not the user's requested end state.
Completion Checklist
- The run or workflow scope, metric window, failure modes, and cost/latency boundary are named.
- Local telemetry, provider truth, billing truth, and completion evidence are separate states.
- Warnings name the next measurement or operator review action.
Recovery Notes
- If provider metrics are unavailable, report only local metadata and mark provider truth not_observed.
- If cost or latency looks risky, surface a warning plus the next measurement rather than a completion claim.
Workflow Lane
- Current lane: Automation and status (
achievements, workspace-audit, production-audit, automation-blueprint, github-event-ops, github-issue-intake, buzz, agent-board, +35 more) - schedules, status, health, and ops review.
- If intent belongs to another lane, hand back to
oh-my-hermes or name the adjacent workflow.
- Shared product, routing, compatibility, and evidence rules:
omh-routing/references/skill-common-rail.md.
Use When
Use before long-running research, coding, review, or multi-agent work when context, token, cost, or summary drift could break quality.
Strong routing signals: `context-budget-review`, `context budget review`, `context budget`, `token budget review`, `token budget`, `prompt budget`, `prompt caching`, `prompt cache`, `cache hygiene`, `context compaction`, `compact context`, `too much context`, `summarization checkpoint`, `budget this task`, `컨텍스트 예산`, `토큰 예산`, `컨텍스트 압축`, `요약 체크포인트`
Catalog Metadata
Category: observability
Phase: context-budget-review
Hermes role: tracker
Quality tier: context-budget-gated
Reasoning demand: standard
Quality bar:
- Name must-keep context before summarizing or delegating long work.
- Separate durable requirements, volatile status, file refs, verification evidence, and open blockers.
- Define checkpoint cadence, overflow recovery, and continuity verification.
- Use bounded copy while preserving the full objective and evidence gaps.
- Keep prompt-prefix placement cache-stable: fixed section order, volatile bytes never above the fold, mid-run changes as appended messages never system-prompt mutations — load
references/cache-placement.md for the placement rules.
Handoff policy:
Keep budget design and status narration in Hermes. Provider billing, exact token usage, runtime compaction, and executor cost evidence require observed wrapper, runtime, or provider data.
Required inputs:
- task or workflow scope
- expected duration, artifacts, and handoff surfaces
- available context sources and must-keep facts
- token, cost, latency, or message-size constraints when known
Expected outputs:
- context_budget_plan/v1
- must_keep_context_pack/v1
- summarization_checkpoint_plan/v1
- budget_risk_register/v1
- overflow_recovery_route/v1
- not-evidence boundary
Artifact expectations:
- context_budget_plan/v1 with scope, max visible context, source priority, discard rules, and checkpoint cadence
- must_keep_context_pack/v1 with durable facts, file refs, decisions, PR/CI state, and blocked assumptions
- summarization_checkpoint_plan/v1 with when to compact, what to preserve, and how to verify continuity
- budget_risk_register/v1 separating estimated cost/token/latency risk from provider-observed truth
Safety rules:
- Do not claim provider billing, exact token counts, or runtime compaction occurred without observed evidence.
- Do not drop user requirements, file paths, PR state, verification gaps, or explicit constraints during compaction.
- Keep estimated budget risk, observed usage, checkpoint summaries, and completion evidence separate.
- Do not use budget pressure as a reason to shrink the user's requested end state.
Runtime Evidence
Preferred harness for this skill: context-budget-review.
omh runtime record --skill context-budget-review --harness context-budget-review --status started
Record observed delegation results; otherwise return not_available or not_observed.
Prepared OMH routing is not execution, review, CI, merge-readiness, or merge evidence.
- Treat wrapper memory/context summaries as advisory local context, not proof of opaque Hermes memory reads or changes.
Preserve workflow intent and stop conditions; verify before claiming completion.
Use Hermes-native subagent/delegation features when available: native subagents -> Hermes delegation when available, otherwise sequential lanes.
Shared product, compatibility, topology, memory, harness, and execution rules: omh-routing/references/skill-common-rail.md. Load it when applicable; otherwise name an unavailable capability.
1---2name: omh-context-budget-review3description: [omh] Hermes Context Budget Review workflow: plan compact context, token/cost budgets, summarization checkpoints, and overflow recovery before long agent work. Use when the user says: context-budget-review, context budget review, context budget, token budget review, token budget, prompt budget, prompt caching, prompt cache.4---5
6# Context Budget Review
7
8This is a Hermes-native `context-budget-review` workflow skill.
9
10## Why This Exists
11
12`context-budget-review` ports ECC's context-budget and token-budget instincts into OMH as a compactness gate that protects long-running work without redefining success around a smaller task.
13
14## Do Not Use When
15
16- The user asks for live token/cost telemetry; use `ops-observability-card`.
17- The user asks to continue a loopable goal; use `loop` unless budget planning is the explicit blocker.
18- The task is a short one-step answer with no meaningful context risk.
19
20## Examples
21
22Good example:
23
24- Prompt: context-budget-review 이 장기 PR 작업에서 어떤 맥락을 꼭 유지하고 언제 요약해야 하는지 잡아줘.
25- Expected behavior: Prepare context_budget_plan/v1, must_keep_context_pack/v1, checkpoint plan, risk register, and overflow recovery route.
26- Why: The request is about preserving context quality during long-running agent work.
27
28Bad example:
29
30- Prompt: context-budget-review 토큰 아끼려고 원래 목표를 더 작은 목표로 바꿔줘.
31- Expected behavior: Reject goal shrinking and instead compact context while preserving the full objective and evidence gaps.
32- Why: Budget review optimizes context handling, not the user's requested end state.
33
34## Completion Checklist
35
36- The run or workflow scope, metric window, failure modes, and cost/latency boundary are named.
37- Local telemetry, provider truth, billing truth, and completion evidence are separate states.
38- Warnings name the next measurement or operator review action.
39
40## Recovery Notes
41
42- If provider metrics are unavailable, report only local metadata and mark provider truth not_observed.
43- If cost or latency looks risky, surface a warning plus the next measurement rather than a completion claim.
44
45## Workflow Lane
46
47- Current lane: **Automation and status** (`achievements`, `workspace-audit`, `production-audit`, `automation-blueprint`, `github-event-ops`, `github-issue-intake`, `buzz`, `agent-board`, `+35 more`) - schedules, status, health, and ops review.
48- If intent belongs to another lane, hand back to `oh-my-hermes` or name the adjacent workflow.
49- Shared product, routing, compatibility, and evidence rules: `omh-routing/references/skill-common-rail.md`.
50
51## Use When
52
53Use before long-running research, coding, review, or multi-agent work when context, token, cost, or summary drift could break quality.
54
55 Strong routing signals: `context-budget-review`, `context budget review`, `context budget`, `token budget review`, `token budget`, `prompt budget`, `prompt caching`, `prompt cache`, `cache hygiene`, `context compaction`, `compact context`, `too much context`, `summarization checkpoint`, `budget this task`, `컨텍스트 예산`, `토큰 예산`, `컨텍스트 압축`, `요약 체크포인트`
56
57## Catalog Metadata
58
59Category: `observability`
60Phase: `context-budget-review`
61Hermes role: `tracker`
62Quality tier: `context-budget-gated`
63Reasoning demand: `standard`
64
65Quality bar:
66
67- Name must-keep context before summarizing or delegating long work.
68- Separate durable requirements, volatile status, file refs, verification evidence, and open blockers.
69- Define checkpoint cadence, overflow recovery, and continuity verification.
70- Use bounded copy while preserving the full objective and evidence gaps.
71- Keep prompt-prefix placement cache-stable: fixed section order, volatile bytes never above the fold, mid-run changes as appended messages never system-prompt mutations — load `references/cache-placement.md` for the placement rules.
72
73Handoff policy:
74
75Keep budget design and status narration in Hermes. Provider billing, exact token usage, runtime compaction, and executor cost evidence require observed wrapper, runtime, or provider data.
76
77Required inputs:
78
79- task or workflow scope
80- expected duration, artifacts, and handoff surfaces
81- available context sources and must-keep facts
82- token, cost, latency, or message-size constraints when known
83
84Expected outputs:
85
86- context_budget_plan/v1
87- must_keep_context_pack/v1
88- summarization_checkpoint_plan/v1
89- budget_risk_register/v1
90- overflow_recovery_route/v1
91- not-evidence boundary
92
93Artifact expectations:
94
95- context_budget_plan/v1 with scope, max visible context, source priority, discard rules, and checkpoint cadence
96- must_keep_context_pack/v1 with durable facts, file refs, decisions, PR/CI state, and blocked assumptions
97- summarization_checkpoint_plan/v1 with when to compact, what to preserve, and how to verify continuity
98- budget_risk_register/v1 separating estimated cost/token/latency risk from provider-observed truth
99
100Safety rules:
101
102- Do not claim provider billing, exact token counts, or runtime compaction occurred without observed evidence.
103- Do not drop user requirements, file paths, PR state, verification gaps, or explicit constraints during compaction.
104- Keep estimated budget risk, observed usage, checkpoint summaries, and completion evidence separate.
105- Do not use budget pressure as a reason to shrink the user's requested end state.
106
107## Runtime Evidence
108
109Preferred harness for this skill: `context-budget-review`.
110
111```sh
112omh runtime record --skill context-budget-review --harness context-budget-review --status started
113```
114
115Record observed delegation results; otherwise return `not_available` or `not_observed`.
116Prepared OMH routing is not execution, review, CI, merge-readiness, or merge evidence.
117- Treat wrapper memory/context summaries as advisory local context, not proof of opaque Hermes memory reads or changes.
118Preserve workflow intent and stop conditions; verify before claiming completion.
119
120Use Hermes-native subagent/delegation features when available: native subagents -> Hermes delegation when available, otherwise sequential lanes.
121
122Shared product, compatibility, topology, memory, harness, and execution rules: `omh-routing/references/skill-common-rail.md`. Load it when applicable; otherwise name an unavailable capability.