Signal compress

Skill mattbaconz/signal/claude-signal/skills/signal-compress

SIGNAL — Agent Skills: terse structured output (tiers, templates, checkpoints), git workflow skills (commit, push, PR, review, ckpt), Karpathy-inspired coding norms. Claude Code, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Codex & other Agent Skills hosts.

Install

npx -y skills add mattbaconz/signal --skill signal-compress

Assembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.

One thing to look at

10 stars10 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

Compress memory files, prompts, rules, handoff notes, and project docs into SIGNAL-shaped prompt-token-friendly text while preserving code, paths, identifiers, errors, versions, and technical terms. Use when user types /signal-compress, "compress this memory", "shrink this prompt", "compress project rules", or asks to reduce input/prompt tokens.

SKILL.md

2.8 KB, as published. Nobody here has run it

⚡ signal-compress — Input Compression

Reduce prompt tokens before the agent reads the same prose every turn. Preserve technical substance; compress prose only.

Invocation Triggers

Activate when user says any of:

/signal-compress
"compress this memory", "shrink this prompt", "compress project rules"
"compress CLAUDE.md", "compress GEMINI.md", "compress AGENTS.md"
"reduce input tokens", "make this rules file shorter"

Targets can be memory files, project rules, prompts, handoff notes, README-like prose, or pasted text.

Behavior

Back up first when a file path is provided:
```
powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\scripts\signal-compress.ps1 -Path .\GEMINI.md
```
The helper only creates <name>.original.<ext> and prints the prompt/review steps.
Compress prose only using templates/signal-compress-prompt.md.
Protect exact tokens:
- Fenced code blocks and shell commands
- Inline code, file paths, line numbers, URLs
- Quoted errors, stack traces, logs
- Version numbers, dates, identifiers, flags, env vars
- Technical terms and proper nouns
Diff review against the original. Reject the rewrite if protected tokens changed, facts disappeared, or instructions became ambiguous.

Report measured savings with this shape:

signal-compress|target=GEMINI.md|chars 2400→980|est_tok 600→245|save 59%|fidelity pass

Output Rules

When returning compressed text, output only the compressed file contents. No preamble, no summary, no wrapper fence.

When reporting a completed file workflow, use one line:

signal-compress|target={path}|chars {old}→{new}|est_tok {old}→{new}|save {pct}%|fidelity {pass|fail}

If compression is unsafe:

SIGNAL_DRIFT: <one-line reason>

Fidelity Gate

A compression win counts only when:

Every protected token is unchanged.
All actionable instructions remain present.
Headings stay navigable.
Any code, paths, flags, errors, and version numbers remain verbatim.
The compressed file can replace the original without changing agent behavior.