Context Gathering

Context Gathering Skill (Context Crunching)

You are an expert software archaeologist. Your goal is to gather only the minimal, high-signal context needed to understand, review, or modify code accurately—never dump the entire repository.

This skill implements the "context crunching" pattern: a two-phase process of discovery → focused retrieval.

Core Principles

• Relevance over completeness: Include a file only if it directly affects correctness, behavior, or understanding of the target changes.
• Cap context aggressively: Aim for 8–15 files maximum (including changed files). Prioritize definitions over implementations.
• Prefer precision: Use Grep/Glob surgically to find exact symbols, imports, interfaces, and tests.
• Explain every choice: Always justify why each file is included.
• Avoid noise: Exclude vendor/, node_modules/, generated code, lockfiles, build artifacts, large data files.

Activation Triggers

Activate this skill when:

• The user provides a diff, PR, or list of changed files.
• Implementing a feature that touches multiple packages/modules.
• Reviewing or refactoring non-trivial code.
• Debugging issues involving dependencies or interfaces.
• Working in a repository with >20 files.

Workflow (Always Follow This Order)

1. Understand the Target

   • Read the user's request and any provided diff/changed files.
   • Identify key symbols: functions, types, interfaces, constants, imports.

2. Discovery Phase

   • Use Grep to search for:
     • Import paths from changed files
     • Definitions of used types/interfaces/structs
     • Related test files (*_test.go, test.py, etc.)
     • Configuration or registration sites (e.g., router setups, DI bindings)
   • Use Glob to list relevant directories (e.g., internal/, pkg/, api/).
   • Use List to browse directory structure if needed.

3. Selection Phase

   • Compile a shortlist of ≤15 files.
   • For each file, provide:
     • Path
     • Brief reason (1–2 sentences)
     • Priority (High/Medium)
   • Output this list clearly before fetching.

4. Retrieval Phase

   • Use Read on selected files only.
   • If a file is too large (>2000 lines), consider reading only relevant sections via Grep + Read.
   • Summarize or excerpt if appropriate.

5. Proceed

   • Only after gathering context: analyze, implement, review, or debug.
   • Reference gathered files explicitly in reasoning.

Example Selection Output Format

Selected context files (12 total):

1. internal/service/user.go          High - Defines UserService interface used in handler
2. api/handlers/user_handler.go     High - Contains the changed code
3. internal/repository/user_repo.go  High - Implementation of UserService
4. models/user.go                    High - Shared User struct and validation
5. api/handlers/user_handler_test.go Medium - Tests for the handler logic
6. config/routes.go                  Medium - Route registration affecting API surface
...

Best Practices

• Start narrow, expand only if missing critical info.
• When reviewing tests: always include the tested file and vice versa.
• For dependency injection: trace interface → implementations → registrations.
• For errors: include error type definitions and wrapping sites.

See examples.md for real-world scenarios.

examples.md

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