| name | context-budget-guard |
| description | Proactively monitors estimated token usage during long sessions and triggers context-window-management before overflow, not after. Use at the start of any session expected to last more than 30 minutes. |
| stateful | true |
Context Budget Guard
State file: ~/.openclaw/skill-state/context-budget-guard/state.yaml
Don't wait for the model to go incoherent. Act at 70%, not 95%.
When to Use
- At the start of any long-running session (>30 min expected)
- Before each major task step in a multi-hour workflow
- When
long-running-task-management advances to a new stage
The Process
Step 1: Initialize (Session Start)
Write to state: session_start timestamp, compaction_count: 0, status: monitoring, threshold_pct: 70.
Step 2: Check Budget (Before Each Major Step)
Estimate current context usage as a rough percentage:
- Low (<50%) — continue normally
- Medium (50–70%) — note in state, proceed with caution (avoid loading large files)
- High (>70%) — trigger
context-window-management NOW, before continuing
To estimate: count approximate tokens from recent messages, loaded file contents, and active task context.
Step 3: After Compaction
- Increment
compaction_count in state
- Write
last_compacted_at, strategy_used (passed from context-window-management)
- Reset mental estimate to ~20% (post-compaction baseline)
Step 4: Session End
Update state: status: idle, session_end timestamp.
Key Principles
- The 70% threshold is the trigger — earlier is always better than later
- Check budget BEFORE loading large files or running subagents, not after
- If in doubt: compact. A clean context costs less than a confused one.
- Works best paired with
long-running-task-management — check budget at every checkpoint
