Imported from michael-denyer/pstack-claude (plugins/pstack/skills/principle-guard-the-context-window/SKILL.md). Install upstream with npx skills add michael-denyer/pstack-claude --skill principle-guard-the-context-window. Copyright stays with the author.

Guard the Context Window

The context window is finite and non-renewable within a session. Every token should be worth its cost.

Why: Context overflow degrades reasoning quality, creates compression artifacts, and halts progress.

Pattern:

• Isolate large payloads. Route verbose outputs, screenshots, and large documents to subagents. The main context gets summaries, not raw data.
• Don't read what you won't use. Read selectively based on relevance. If a file isn't needed for the current task, skip it.
• Keep frequently used content inline. Templates and references used on every invocation belong in the skill file, not in separate files that cost a read each time.
• Size phases and cap scope. Limit files per phase, set turn budgets, account for mechanism costs.