---
title: "Context Compaction Strategy"
description: "When compacting this conversation, follow these preservation priorities."
type: skill
canonical_url: https://claudary.paisolsolutions.com/skills/compaction-strategy
source: "Claudary"
difficulty: intermediate
author: "Claude Code Knowledge Pack"
date: 2026-07-10T11:18:38.242Z
license: CC-BY-4.0
attribution: "Context Compaction Strategy — Claudary (https://claudary.paisolsolutions.com/skills/compaction-strategy)"
---

# Context Compaction Strategy
When compacting this conversation, follow these preservation priorities.

## Overview

# Context Compaction Strategy

When compacting this conversation, follow these preservation priorities.

## Always Preserve

1. **Decisions with reasoning** — What was decided AND why
2. **Code changes** — File paths, what changed, the intent
3. **Current task state** — What we're doing and progress made
4. **Errors and fixes** — Problems encountered and how resolved
5. **User-provided context** — Constraints, preferences, domain knowledge
6. **Open questions** — Unresolved items that need addressing

## Compress or Drop

1. **Exploration dead ends** — Keep only the conclusion, not the journey
2. **Verbose tool output** — Summarize file listings, grep results, traces
3. **Intermediate reasoning** — Keep conclusions, drop the process
4. **Repeated operations** — Summarize patterns, don't list each one
5. **Superseded info** — Drop things that are no longer true

## Output Format

Structure the compacted context as:

```
CURRENT STATE: [task] / [phase] / [status]

DECISIONS:
- [decision] — [why]

CODE CHANGES:
- [file:line] — [what and why]

OPEN QUESTIONS:
- [question]

KEY CONTEXT:
[essential background]

NEXT STEPS:
1. [action]
```

Use bullet points. Include file paths. Keep reasoning for decisions.

---

Source: [Claudary](https://claudary.paisolsolutions.com/skills/compaction-strategy) · https://claudary.paisolsolutions.com