Strategic compact

Skill TheophilusChinomona/idev/skills/strategic-compact

Claude Code plugin: token-optimized dev workflow — cached project context, pattern scanners, build & wiring verification, session persistence, self-review. 23 skills, 3 agents, 4 commands.

Install

npx -y skills add TheophilusChinomona/idev --skill strategic-compact

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Suggests manual /compact at logical task boundaries (after exploration, planning, milestones) instead of arbitrary auto-compaction. Use when the user wants automatic /compact reminders, asks about managing context size, or when deciding whether to suggest compaction at a phase boundary.

SKILL.md

3.9 KB, 861 tokens by cl100k_base, as published. Nobody here has run it

Strategic Compact Skill

Suggests manual /compact at strategic points in your workflow rather than relying on arbitrary auto-compaction.

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

What Claude should do when this skill loads

At phase boundaries (plan finalized, milestone complete, bug fixed, long exploration finished), suggest the user run /compact — briefly, with the reason.
When the PostToolUse hook below injects a [strategic-compact] reminder, treat it as a prompt to evaluate whether the current moment is a logical boundary; only suggest /compact if it is. Never suggest it mid-implementation.
Remind the user that durable state survives compaction: .claude/idev/smart-context/index.json, .claude/idev/project-map/project.map.md, and the other .claude/idev/ caches.

How the hook works

suggest-compact.sh (Unix) / suggest-compact.ps1 (Windows) run on PostToolUse with matcher Edit|Write:

Read the hook JSON from stdin and extract session_id
Increment a per-session counter file in the temp directory
Every N calls (default 50), emit hookSpecificOutput JSON on stdout, which Claude Code injects as additional context for Claude

Hook Setup

The hook is pre-registered by the plugin's hooks/hooks.json (PostToolUse, matcher Edit|Write) but off by default — the script exits instantly unless the per-project opt-in flag exists. Enable it with:

/idev:hooks enable compact

which creates <project>/.claude/idev/compact-suggestions-enabled. Disable with /idev:hooks disable compact. No settings.json editing, takes effect immediately.

<details><summary>Manual wiring (only if you can't use the plugin-registered hook)</summary>

Add to ~/.claude/settings.json — NOTE: ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT} is NOT expanded in user settings; use the absolute plugin path. The matcher is a regex over tool names, not an expression language:

{
  "hooks": {
    "PostToolUse": [{
      "matcher": "Edit|Write",
      "hooks": [{
        "type": "command",
        "command": "bash \"<idev-plugin-root>/skills/strategic-compact/suggest-compact.sh\""
      }]
    }]
  }
}

(Windows: powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File "<idev-plugin-root>\\skills\\strategic-compact\\suggest-compact.ps1".) The opt-in flag file is still required either way.

</details>

Configuration

IDEV_COMPACT_THRESHOLD - Edit/Write calls between suggestions (default: 50)

Best Practices

Compact after planning - Once plan is finalized, compact to start fresh
Compact after debugging - Clear error-resolution context before continuing
Don't compact mid-implementation - Preserve context for related changes
The hook tells you when, you decide if

Phase	Compact After	Why
Exploration	Reading 10+ files	Research context no longer needed
Planning	Plan finalized	Implementation needs fresh context
Debugging	Bug fixed	Error traces no longer needed
Feature complete	Tests pass	Ready for next feature

smart-context skill - For context that persists across compaction
project-map skill - The map survives compaction at .claude/idev/project-map/project.map.md

Gives 0 of the 12 instructions most roadmap strategy skills give in 861 tokens

Counted across 591 of the 672 authors here whose files we hold, read 2026-08-07

read product marketing context before asking questionsin 21 of 591, across 10 files
base price on perceived value, not costin 15 of 591, across 4 files
compact after finalizing a planin 14 of 591, across 9 files
differentiate tiers using features, limits, or supportin 14 of 591, across 3 files
use Van Westendorp to find acceptable price rangein 13 of 591, across 2 files
use MaxDiff to identify highly valued featuresin 13 of 591, across 2 files
map topics to buyer journey stagesin 12 of 591, across 6 files
Extract domain capabilities and classify subdomainsin 11 of 591, across 1 file
Define bounded contexts around consistency and ownershipin 11 of 591, across 1 file
Establish a ubiquitous language glossary and anti-termsin 11 of 591, across 1 file
Capture context boundaries in ADRs before implementationin 11 of 591, across 1 file
Open the strategic design template if neededin 11 of 591, across 1 file

Said here and by no other author read

give a brief reason for the compaction suggestion
evaluate injected reminders for logical boundaries
remind user that durable state persists across compaction

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.