context-budget

name	context-budget
description	Surgical reading discipline: Grep before Read, offset/limit for large files, batch tool calls, avoid re-reading. Activate when context window is above 60% or on long sessions.

Context Budget Rules

File Loading Priority

1. Grep first — search for symbol, pattern, or text before opening any file
2. Glob to locate — find files by name pattern before reading contents
3. Read targeted sections — offset/limit for only relevant lines
4. Read whole files last — only when full structure genuinely needed

Over-Reading Patterns

• Opening a file "just to see what's in it"
• Re-reading a file already in context this session
• Reading entire file when only a function/block is needed
• Grepping config files speculatively (Grep instead)

Parallel vs Sequential

• Independent queries (two different files): batch in one response
• Dependent queries (grep → then read match): sequential is correct
• Never N sequential calls that could be 1 parallel call

Context Hygiene

• Context > 80%: finish subtask cleanly, then /compact
• No re-read files in context — content still there
• Summarize long tool outputs; don't repeat verbatim

Signs of Over-Reading

• Reading to "confirm" what's already in context
• Reading every import to trace a dependency
• Opening files mentioned in comments speculatively
• cat/Read on files not yet Grep'd