Context Compaction
The process where Claude summarizes prior conversation to free up context space, preserving key decisions while discarding verbose history.
Context compaction happens automatically when the conversation approaches the token limit. Claude compresses earlier exchanges into a summary, retaining decisions, file paths, and action items while dropping the verbose back-and-forth. The risk is losing critical state: a correction made 40 messages ago might get compacted away. Knowledge OS mitigates this by writing state to files (PRDs, memory files, iteration logs) rather than relying on conversation memory. The Ralph Execute protocol was specifically designed to survive compaction by storing all project state in a PRD file that gets re-read after each compaction event.
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Related Terms
Architecture
Context Window
The token limit within which Claude operates per conversation, determining how much knowledge, histo...
Methodology
Session Recovery
The protocol for resuming work after context loss or a new session, checking for active plans and re...
Methodology
Ralph Execute
A stateless iteration protocol where all project state lives in a PRD file, enabling multi-session e...
Foundation
Memory System
File-based persistent memory that survives across conversations, storing corrections, preferences, a...