Strategic compact

Skill onfire7777/universal-ai-skills-library/skills/strategic-compact

Suggests manual context compaction at logical intervals to preserve context through task phases rather than arbitrary auto-compaction.From its SKILL.md

Install

npx -y skills add onfire7777/universal-ai-skills-library --skill strategic-compact

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One thing to look at

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SKILL.md

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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:

Tracks tool calls — Counts tool invocations in session
Threshold detection — Suggests at configurable threshold (default: 50 calls)
Periodic reminders — Reminds every 25 calls after threshold

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)

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
TodoWrite task list	File contents you previously read
Memory files (`~/.claude/memory/`)	Multi-step conversation context
Git state (commits, branches)	Tool call history and counts
Files on disk	Nuanced user preferences stated verbally

Best Practices

Compact after planning — Once plan is finalized in TodoWrite, 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

The Longform Guide — Token optimization section
Memory persistence hooks — For state that survives compaction
continuous-learning skill — Extracts patterns before session ends

What ships with it: 1 file

272 B alongside SKILL.md

agents/

openai.yaml272 B

Gives 4 of the 12 instructions most roadmap strategy skills give in 845 tokens

Counted across 614 of the 719 authors here whose files we hold, read 2026-09-06

Check for product marketing context firstin 39 of 614, across 16 files
Use compact with a custom summaryhere, and in 32 of 614, across 16 files
Compact after planningin 30 of 614, across 16 files
Do not compact mid-implementationhere, and in 30 of 614, across 17 files
Structure launch marketing across three channel typesin 21 of 614, across 5 files
Read the compaction suggestionhere, and in 20 of 614, across 10 files
Write before compactingin 17 of 614, across 11 files
Write important context to files before compactinghere, and in 16 of 614, across 5 files
Recruit early users one-on-onein 16 of 614, across 3 files
Identify 3-5 core content pillarsin 15 of 614, across 9 files
Target a specific keyword or questionin 14 of 614, across 4 files
Stagger announcements to maintain momentumin 14 of 614, across 4 files

Grouped from the skills themselves: near-identical wordings counted once, and counted by distinct author, so one author publishing three of these counts once. Length counted with cl100k_base; the agent that loads this file may tokenize it differently.