Compact Guard

Protect important context through compaction cycles. Based on Claude Code internals: compaction restores max 5 files with 5K tokens each, within a 50K total budget.

Trigger

Use before /compact or when auto-compact warning appears.

Key Constants (from Claude Code source)

• POST_COMPACT_MAX_FILES_TO_RESTORE = 5, only 5 files survive
• POST_COMPACT_TOKEN_BUDGET = 50K, total restore budget
• POST_COMPACT_MAX_TOKENS_PER_FILE = 5K, per-file limit
• Auto-compact fires at context_window - 13K buffer

Pre-Compact Checklist

Before compacting, save these to memory or a scratch file:

1. Current task, What are you working on? One sentence.
2. Files in progress, Which files are being edited? (max 5, compaction only restores 5)
3. Decisions made, Any architectural choices made this session
4. Blockers, What's preventing progress?
5. Next steps, What to do immediately after compact

Strategy: Microcompact First

Before full compaction, try microcompact:

• Large tool results (test output, grep results) can be trimmed
• File reads that are no longer relevant can be dropped
• Use subagents for heavy exploration to keep main context clean

Post-Compact Recovery

After compaction, immediately:

1. Re-read the top-priority file (the one you're actively editing)
2. Check task list for current progress
3. Review any scratch notes saved pre-compact
4. Resume from next steps

Prevention Strategies

Strategy	Token Savings	When
Delegate grep/search to subagent	30-60% per search	Always for broad searches
Read only needed lines (offset/limit)	50-90% per read	Large files
Compact at task boundaries	Preserves coherence	Between logical steps
Use /resume for fresh start	100%	Unrelated new task

Output