# Autocompact Circuit Breaker

> Break the autocompact retry loop after several consecutive failures to avoid hammering shared APIs.

- Skill: `vishuwa2004/autocompact-circuit-breaker` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add vishuwa2004/autocompact-circuit-breaker`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/vishuwa2004/autocompact-circuit-breaker/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: vishuwa2004 (https://skillmd.com/u/vishuwa2004)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/vishuwa2004/autocompact-circuit-breaker

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# SKILL: Autocompact Circuit Breaker
**Domain:** context-management  
**Trigger:** Apply when autocompact failures repeat and the service must stop retrying to avoid API storms.
**Source Pattern:** Distilled from reviewed session memory, compaction, and context-budgeting implementations.

## Core Method
Track consecutive autocompact failures via the caller-provided auto compact tracking state. After each failure, increment the counter, log a warning once the configured limit is reached, and return the updated count instead of throwing. The loop uses this counter to skip further auto-compact attempts as long as the limit is exceeded, effectively acting as a circuit breaker that keeps doomed sessions from flooding the service.

## Key Rules
- Add one to the failure counter on every exception (unless it’s a user abort).
- When the counter reaches the policy limit, log the breaker trip so telemetry reveals the gap.
- Return was compacted false plus consecutive failures so callers can persist the new state.
- Use the counter to skip auto-compact early on future turns rather than re-running the failed path.
- Reset the counter on a successful compaction so normal behavior resumes.

## Example Application
After three consecutive failures hitting the context limit, auto compact if needed stops retrying, logs `circuit breaker tripped`, and the tracker causes the next turn to skip compaction until a successful run resets the counter.

## Anti-Patterns (What NOT to do)
- Don’t let the controller keep retrying with the same broken context; the breaker exists to keep it quiet.
- Don’t swallow failure logs — future debugging relies on the warning emitted when the limit trips.

