strategic-compact

name strategic-compact description Suggests manual context compaction at logical intervals to preserve context through task phases rather than arbitrary auto-compaction. Use when a session is approaching a context limit and a task phase is a natural place to compact. Strategic Compact Skill Suggests manual /compact at strategic points in your workflow rather than relying on arbitrary auto-compaction. When to Activate Running long sessions that approach context limits (200K+ tokens) 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 How It Works The suggest-compact.js script runs on PreToolUse (Edit/Write) and combines two signals: Context size (primary) — Reads the latest usage record from the session transcript ( transcript_path in the hook payload) and sums input_tokens + cache_read_input_tokens + cache_creation_input_tokens (the true context size of the turn). Suggests /compact at a window-scaled threshold — 160k tokens on a 200k window, 250k on a 1M window (detected from a [1m] model marker, or inferred when observed tokens already exceed 200k) — and re-reminds after every additional 60k tokens of context growth Tool-call count (secondary) — Counts tool invocations in session; suggests at a configurable threshold (default: 50 calls), then every 25 calls after Hook Setup Add to your ~/.claude/settings.json : { "hooks" : { "PreToolUse" : [ { "matcher" : "Edit" , "hooks" : [ { "type" : "command" , "command" : "node ~/.claude/skills/strategic-compact/suggest-compact.js" } ] } , { "matcher" : "Write" , "hooks" : [ { "type" : "command" , "command" : "node ~/.claude/skills/strategic-compact/suggest-compact.js" } ] } ] } } Configuration Environment variables: COMPACT_THRESHOLD — Tool calls before first suggestion (default: 50) COMPACT_CONTEXT_THRESHOLD — Context tokens before the context-size suggestion (default: 160000 on a 200k window, 250000 on a 1M window; 0 disables the context signal) COMPACT_CONTEXT_INTERVAL — Additional context tokens before the suggestion repeats (default: 60000) ECC_CONTEXT_WINDOW_TOKENS — Explicit context-window size, in tokens, overriding auto-detection. Set this for large-window models whose reported id lacks a [1m] marker (e.g. 400k Opus 4.x, or a new 1M-window model family) so the threshold scales to the real window instead of defaulting to 200k and overstating context usage. CLAUDE_CODE_AUTO_COMPACT_WINDOW — Claude Code's native window-size override, in tokens; honored as a fallback when ECC_CONTEXT_WINDOW_TOKENS is unset. The context window is otherwise auto-detected from a [1m] model marker or inferred when observed tokens already exceed 200k. On a large-window model that carries neither signal, set one of the overrides above so the /compact suggestion fires at the right point. 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 written down (a file, or the task list if you have one); 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 Files on disk File contents you previously read Memory files ( ~/.claude/memory/ ) Multi-step conversation context Git state (commits, branches) Tool call history and counts The task list — only if you have the todo tools (see below) Nuanced user preferences stated verbally Don't rely on the task list surviving — it may not exist Claude Code 2.1.233 removed the todo/task tools by default on Opus 4.8, Sonnet 5, Fable 5, Mythos 5 and newer models ( TodoWrite , TaskCreate/Get/Update/List ). CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TODO_TOOLS=1 brings them back, but that is a per-machine environment setting — it does not travel with this skill , so you cannot assume the reader has it. This matters because "my todo list survives compaction" is a reason people compact instead of writing state down. If the tools are absent there is no list to survive, and the plan is simply gone. Write the plan to a file before compacting — a file persists on every version and every model. Treat the task list as a convenience that may be missing, never as your durable record. Best Practices Compact after planning — Once the plan is finalized and written to a file , compact to start fresh Compact after debugging — Clear error-resolution context before continuing Don't compact mid-implementation — Preserve context for related changes Read the suggestion — The hook tells you when , you decide if Write before compacting — Save important context to files or memory before compacting Use /compact with a summary — Add a custom message: /compact Focus on implementing auth middleware next Related The Longform Guide — Token optimization section Memory persistence hooks — For state that survives compaction continuous-learning skill — Extracts patterns before session ends