Prepare for compaction
The person is about to compact this session's context and is waiting on one answer: is the ledger current?
Make it current before answering — write in what the work has added since its last entry, on the spot. A ledger that is behind is something to fix here, never something to report. Then answer plainly that compacting is safe.
This is one step of the ritual the person drives: spot the moment, prepare, compact, reground.