Context manager
Personal Claude Code skills by Santhosh Gandhi — context-manager and frugal-token-usage
npx -y skills add isanthoshgandhi/santhoshstack --skill context-managerAssembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.
One thing to look at
- 0 stars0 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.
What its author says it does
Copied from the file, not written here
Full project context setup and session management skill. Use this when starting a new project, onboarding onto an existing codebase, resuming work after a session gap, ending a session and wanting to save progress, or when context is running low mid-session. Sets up a docs/context/ system that any AI tool can read (Claude, Codex, Cursor, Windsurf). Three modes: SETUP (first time), RESUME (session start), UPDATE (session end). Trigger on: "set up context", "resume project", "update context", "end session", "context manager", "save progress", "continue from where we left off", or when starting work on any large multi-domain project.
SKILL.md
3.3 KB, as published. Nobody here has run it
Context Manager
Sets up and maintains a minimal, tool-agnostic context system so any AI tool can resume any project without re-reading everything.
Core principle: Global rules + domain scoping + two files per domain.
Two files per domain (non-negotiable):
{domain}.md— operational. Resume state, current status, next task, open bugs. Changes every session.{domain}-ref.md— reference. What exists, where it lives, how it works, why it's built this way. Changes only when architecture or decisions change.
Three-layer architecture:
Layer 3 — Knowledge cross-project, distilled, long-lived (~/.claude/knowledge/)
Layer 2 — Project cross-session, time-aware (docs/sessions/, docs/backlog/)
Layer 1 — Session per-session context (docs/context/)
Layer 1 + 2 → {project-root}/docs/
Layer 3 → ~/.claude/knowledge/ (change to any persistent path — use it consistently)
Step 1 — Detect mode
| Mode | When |
|---|---|
| SETUP | No docs/context/ exists. First time on this project. |
| RESUME | Session starting. User wants to pick up where they left off. |
| UPDATE | Session ending, context running low, or saving progress. |
When ambiguous, ask: "Set up fresh, resume work, or save and wrap up?"
Step 2 — Load mode file
After detecting mode, use Glob to find the mode file, then Read it and follow its instructions:
| Mode | File to load |
|---|---|
| SETUP | **/context-manager/SETUP.md |
| RESUME | **/context-manager/RESUME.md |
| UPDATE | **/context-manager/UPDATE.md |
Do not load all three. Load only the one that matches the detected mode.
Context slicing rules (non-negotiable)
- Never load full history
- Load both domain files every session:
{domain}.md+{domain}-ref.md(knowledge store = +1 on Cold resume only) - Prefer structured data over prose
- Drop redundancy — if it's in the code, don't duplicate in context
- Compress before adding — update existing files, don't append forever
- pointers.md is the only file that routes — never bypass it
- Session timing is mandatory — every entry must have start, end, duration
- Distill before the log grows unreadable — trigger at 20 entries or 30 days
- Knowledge store is read-only during RESUME — only written during UPDATE distillation
- Always load the domain file — gap determines whether to also load sessions/knowledge store, not whether to load the domain file
- {domain}-ref.md is a snapshot, not an accumulation — when a decision is superseded or a file path changes, replace it. Never append without pruning stale entries.