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# Context Compaction
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A long task does not fail at the context limit, it degrades well before it. The agent
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starts forgetting decisions it made an hour ago, re-litigates settled questions, and
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re-reads files it already understood. This harness compacts deliberately: it decides
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in advance what must survive, writes a checkpoint that can be resumed cold, and drops
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the rest.
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## When to use
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- Multi-hour or multi-session tasks: migrations, large refactors, long investigations.
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- Any agent loop that runs until a goal is met rather than for a fixed number of steps.
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- Work that may be interrupted and picked up later, possibly by someone else.
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## Install
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```bash
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npx openagents-cli add openagents/context-compaction
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```
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| Runtime | Installed to |
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|---|---|
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| `claude-code` | `.claude/skills/context-compaction/` |
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| `codex` | `.codex/skills/context-compaction/` |
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| `openai-agents` | `agents/context-compaction/` |
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| `langgraph` | `graphs/context-compaction/` |
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| `generic` | `.openagents/context-compaction/` |
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## What is in the package
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- `HARNESS.md` - what survives compaction, what does not, and when to trigger it.
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- `templates/checkpoint.md` - the checkpoint format, resumable without the transcript.
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## License
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MIT
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