Strategic 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 show context pressure or degraded coherence
• 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 | | Todo/task artifacts on disk | File contents you previously read | | Session notes and plan evidence | 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

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: danielleit241
• Source: danielleit241/forge
• License: ISC

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.