| name | tomo-lcm |
| description | Context management — prune tool results, check context usage, roll up history into hierarchical block summaries (daily/weekly/monthly/yearly), search past conversations. Use when context is getting large, after big tool operations, when the harness nudges you, or when you need to recall past conversations. |
Context Management (LCM)
Manage your context window via tomo lcm CLI. Your channel key and SDK session ID are in your system prompt under # SESSION.
Mental model — hierarchical block rollups
Context is organized as a time hierarchy, each level consuming the one below:
raw tail ← today's unsummarized user/assistant events
daily block ← today's summary, covers one local-tz day
weekly block ← rolls up 7 daily blocks for one ISO week
monthly block ← rolls up weeklies for one month
yearly block ← rolls up monthlies for one year
Steady state for a long-running session: a handful of yearly blocks, ~12 monthly, 4-5 weekly, 1-7 daily, plus today raw. Total: bounded regardless of age.
Each block has a tag like daily 2026-04-17, weekly 2026-W16, monthly 2026-04, yearly 2026. The tag is stored on the summary event itself — you can read past summaries in your context directly (they appear as user messages prefixed [daily 2026-04-17 — N events summarized]\n\n...).
Daily flow
See DAILY.md — write at end of day (or mid-day when the tail gets heavy).
tomo lcm daily --session-id SESSION_ID --summary "<today's summary>"
The CLI auto-resolves today's date and finds raw events to compact. If a daily 2026-04-17 block already exists from an earlier-in-day rebuild, it's replaced (same tag, new summary absorbs newer raw events).
Weekly / Monthly / Yearly flow
See WEEKLY.md, MONTHLY.md, YEARLY.md.
tomo lcm weekly --session-id SESSION_ID --summary "<weekly summary>"
tomo lcm monthly --session-id SESSION_ID --summary "<monthly summary>"
tomo lcm yearly --session-id SESSION_ID --summary "<yearly summary>"
These consume block summaries already in your context — no tool calls needed to fetch source data. You just read the child blocks and synthesize.
The harness will nudge you via a <tomo-event type="lcm-rollup" ...> message when rollups are due (idempotent — catches missed Mondays etc.).
Other commands
-
Prune tool results — strip bulky tool output without writing a summary. Fast, safe, no context cost. Do this first when context is heavy.
tomo lcm prune-tools --session-id SESSION_ID
Options: --dry-run, --min-size 5000, --tools Read,Bash, --no-images.
-
Stats — show a breakdown. Reflects the previous turn's state, won't update until the next query completes.
tomo lcm stats --session-id SESSION_ID
-
Search — look up messages in the transcript or archive. See SEARCH.md.
tomo lcm search --session-id SESSION_ID --query "text"
-
Time-range compact (escape hatch) — compact an arbitrary time range instead of a block. Use for surgical middle-range compactions. See COMPACT.md.
When to act
- Harness nudge — always prioritize. The system tells you exactly which rollup to run.
- Context ≥ 70% — the harness will nudge you to run
tomo lcm daily.
- Heavy tool output — run
prune-tools first (cheap, no summary needed).
- Context > 70% or after big tool-heavy tasks — use the above as appropriate.
Writing style for summaries
See the per-level docs for tailored guidance. General rules:
- Note-to-self voice, not changelog
- Dates in YYYY-MM-DD format (searchable)
- Preserve outcomes, decisions, key quotes — drop step-by-step narration
- For conversations: one vivid detail beats a paragraph of abstraction
- Target lengths (assumes bilingual Chinese/English — CJK characters tokenize ~3× denser than English, so byte-budget scales up accordingly):
- daily: 1,000-2,500 tokens
- weekly: 2,000-4,000 tokens
- monthly: 3,000-6,000 tokens
- yearly: 5,000-10,000 tokens
If you're writing pure English, aim for the lower end (or below). These are ceilings for dense CJK content, not targets to fill.
Archive & recall
Rolled-up source events live in _archive_<sdkSessionId>.jsonl, searchable via tomo lcm search. Daily memory notes also live in memory/journal/YYYY-MM-DD.md — read those directly when you want warm texture on a specific date.
