| name | compact-handoff |
| description | This skill should be used when a session is being compacted/summarized (context is full or the user runs a compact command), or when writing any handoff summary that a later session or subagent will continue from. Defines what to preserve versus drop so the continuation doesn't waste tokens re-reading files and re-deriving state. Part of the HarnessTrim token-economy stack; the OpenCode adapter injects this guidance automatically via experimental.session.compacting. |
| version | 0.1.0 |
| license | MIT |
compact-handoff
A compaction summary is the seed context for everything that follows. If it drops the wrong
things, the next turns re-read files, re-run searches, and re-decide settled questions — spending
far more tokens than the summary ever saved. Optimize the summary for resumption, not brevity.
Preserve
- The task and its acceptance criteria — what "done" means, verbatim if the user stated it.
- Decisions made and alternatives rejected — with the reason, so they aren't re-litigated.
- Hard-won specifics — exact file paths, symbol names, commands that worked, config values,
version numbers, API signatures discovered. These are the expensive-to-rediscover facts.
- Current state — what is done, what is verified (and how), what is still failing and the
last error seen.
Drop
- Step-by-step narration of what was already done ("first I opened X, then I ran Y").
- Raw tool output that has already been acted on (test logs, file dumps, search results).
- Anything trivially reconstructable from the current diff or a single cheap command.
- Restatements of the codebase's structure that the next session can read directly.
Shape
Write the summary as short labeled sections (Task / Decisions / Key facts / State), not prose.
A resuming agent should be able to act from it without re-reading the whole transcript.
