context-packer

name	context-packer
description	Build LLM-ready code dumps with optional docs, then count tokens with tokencount (o200k-base) against a context budget (for example 272k for GPT-5).

Context Packer

Use this skill when the user wants to:

• copy a project into an LLM-friendly single text file,
• include/exclude docs, tests, lockfiles, etc.,
• verify token count against a model context window.

What it does

prepare-context.sh:

1. Selects relevant project files (tracked files by default)
2. Excludes common junk (generated files, prior dumps, lockfiles/env/sensitive files unless requested)
3. Builds a fenced text dump (path + ``` + contents) for all selected files
4. Writes dump to <project>/prompt/<output>.txt (or /tmp/context-packer/... with --tmp-output)
5. Writes a manifest of included files next to the dump
6. Counts tokens with tokencount --encoding o200k-base
7. Reports whether it fits the provided budget

Command

$HOME/dev/pi-skills/context-packer/prepare-context.sh <project_dir> [options]

Common invocations

# Default budget (272000), code + docs + tests pack
$HOME/dev/pi-skills/context-packer/prepare-context.sh ~/dev/pui

# Code-focused pack (exclude docs and tests)
$HOME/dev/pi-skills/context-packer/prepare-context.sh ~/dev/pui --no-docs --no-tests

# Include env/sensitive files explicitly (off by default for safety)
$HOME/dev/pi-skills/context-packer/prepare-context.sh ~/dev/pui --include-env --include-secrets

# Custom budget and output name
$HOME/dev/pi-skills/context-packer/prepare-context.sh ~/dev/pui \
    --budget 272000 \
    --output pui-gpt5.txt

# Fail with exit code 2 if over budget
$HOME/dev/pi-skills/context-packer/prepare-context.sh ~/dev/pui --fail-over-budget

Options

• --output <name> output filename (default: context-dump.txt)
• --tmp-output write output to /tmp/context-packer/... instead of <project>/prompt/
• --budget <tokens> token budget (default: 272000)
• --with-docs include docs/ (default: on)
• --with-tests include test files (__tests__, tests/, test/, *.test.*, *.spec.*, etc.) (default: on)
• --no-docs exclude docs/
• --no-tests exclude test files (__tests__, tests/, test/, *.test.*, *.spec.*, etc.)
• --include-lockfiles include lockfiles (pnpm-lock.yaml, Cargo.lock, etc.)
• --include-env include env files (.env, .env.*, .envrc) (default: off)
• --include-secrets include potentially sensitive files (.npmrc, .netrc, keys/certs, cloud credential files, etc.) (default: off)
• --no-clipboard do not refresh clipboard from output file
• --fail-over-budget return non-zero if budget exceeded
• --install-tools install missing tokencount via cargo

Requirements

• tokencount installed (cargo install tokencount)
• Optional helper utility: copy_files (not required)
• Optional clipboard tools:
  • macOS: pbcopy
  • Linux Wayland: wl-copy

If no clipboard tool is available, the script still writes output files; it just skips clipboard copy.