strategic-compact

Files (3)

• LICENSE
• SKILL.md
• suggest-compact.sh

SKILL.md (first lines)

# Strategic Compact Skill

Suggests manual `/compact` at strategic points in your workflow rather than relying on arbitrary auto-compaction.

## When to Activate

- Sessions that have actually approached the current model's context window (re-derive the number from the running model, do not hardcode it)
- Working on multi-phase tasks (research → plan → implement → test)
- Switching between unrelated tasks within the same session
- After completing a major milestone and starting new work
- When responses slow down or become less coherent (context pressure)

## Why Strategic Compaction?

Auto-compaction triggers at arbitrary points:
- Often mid-task, losing important context
- No awareness of logical task boundaries
- Can interrupt complex multi-step operations

Strategic compaction at logical boundaries:
- **After exploration, before execution** — Compact research context, keep implementation plan
- **After completing a milestone** — Fresh start for next phase
- **Before major context shifts** — Clear exploration context before different task

## Compaction Decision Guide

Use this table to decide when to compact:

| Phase Transition | Compact? | Why |
|-----------------|----------|-----|
| Research → Planning | Yes | Research context is bulky; plan is the distilled output |
| Planning → Implementation | Yes | Plan is in TodoWrite or a file; free up context for code |
| Implementation → Testing | Maybe | Keep if tests reference recent code; compact if switching focus |
| Debugging → Next feature | Yes | Debug traces pollute context for unrelated work |
| Mid-implementation | No | Losing variable names, file paths, and partial state is costly |
| After a failed approach | Yes | Clear the dead-end reasoning before trying a new approach |

## What Survives Compaction

Understanding what persists helps you compact with confidence:

| Persists | Lost |
|----------|------|
| CLAUDE.md instructions | Intermediate reasoning and analysis |
| TodoWrite task list | File contents you previously read |
| Memory files (`~/.claude/memory/`) | Multi-step conversation context |
| Git state (commits, branches) | Tool call history and counts |
| Files on disk | Nuanced user preferences stated verbally |

## Best Practices

1. **Compact after planning** — Once plan is finalized in TodoWrite, compact to start fresh
2. **Compact after debugging** — Clear error-resolution context before continuing
3. **Don't compact mid-implementation** — Preserve context for related changes
4. **Read the suggestion** — The hook tells you *when*, you decide *if*
5. **Write before compacting** — Save important context to files or memory before compacting
6. **Use `/compact` with a summary** — Add a custom message: `/compact Focus on implementing auth middleware next`

## Token Optimization Patterns

### Context Composition Awareness
Monitor what's consuming your context window:
- **CLAUDE.md files** — Always loaded, keep lean
- **Loaded skills** — Each skill adds 1-5K tokens
- **Conversation history** — Grows with each exchange
- **Tool results** — File reads, search results add bulk

### Duplicate Instruction Detection
Common sources of duplicate context:
- Same rules in both `~/.claude/rules/` and project `.claude/rules/`
- Skills that repeat CLAUDE.md instructions
- Multiple skills covering overlapping domains

## Related

- Memory persistence hooks — For state that survives compaction

From GGGODLIN/gggodlin-cc-harness, MIT.

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