Strategic Compact Skill

Manual /compact at logical workflow boundaries, not arbitrary auto-compaction points.

When to Activate

• Running long sessions approaching context limits (200K+ tokens)
• Multi-phase tasks (research → plan → implement → test)
• Switching between unrelated tasks within the same session
• After completing a major milestone before starting new work

Quick Start

1. Identify logical phase boundaries in your work
2. Save important findings to files before compacting
3. Use /compact with a context message (e.g., "/compact Now implementing auth")
4. Continue work referencing saved files, not conversation history

Key Concepts

• Auto-compaction problem — Triggers at arbitrary points, often mid-task
• Strategic compaction — Compact after exploration/planning, before execution
• Persistence — Project instructions, git state, and files on disk survive; conversation history and intermediate reasoning don't
• Checkpoint discipline — Save learnings to files; use git commits to mark progress
• Token awareness — 150K → consider; 180K → plan; 200K+ → should have already compacted

Common Usage

Most frequent patterns:

• Research → build (compact after documentation phase)
• Exploration → execution (compact after CLAUDE.md is written)
• Debug → next feature (compact after fix is committed)
• Failed approach → new strategy (compact to clear dead-end reasoning)

References

• references/compaction-guide.md — Decision table, what survives, patterns, token budgeting, optimization strategies
• references/tool-integration.md — Script documentation, configuration, integration methods
• Compaction command — /compact [optional message]
• Status check — Check session context size before major operations
• Memory files — Save to disk (survives compaction)
• Git commits — Mark progress (persists across compaction)