context-engineering
Context-engineering monitors token consumption across orchestrator and subagents within the GSD system, maintaining orchestrator usage between 15-30% while allocating 200k tokens to each spawned subagent. Use this skill to track context thresholds, receive warnings at 70/85/95% utilization, plan wave-level budget allocation, and trigger summarization or subagent spawning before context degradation occurs.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/a5c-ai/babysitter /tmp/context-engineering && cp -r /tmp/context-engineering/library/methodologies/gsd/skills/context-engineering ~/.claude/skills/context-engineeringSKILL.md
- **Subagents**: Get full 200k tokens of fresh context per spawn.
- **Context budget**: Plan how much context each wave of execution will consume.
This skill provides:
- Context window usage estimation for the current session
- Warning injection at configurable thresholds (70%, 85%, 95%)
- Orchestrator budget enforcement
- Subagent context allocation recommendations
- Context-aware summarization triggers
- Stale context detection and pruning suggestions
- Wave-level context budget planning
## Capabilities
### 1. Context Usage Estimation
Estimate current context window usage based on conversation history size:
```
Tokens used: ~45,000 / 200,000
Usage: 22.5%
Status: HEALTHY
Next threshold: 70% (warning) at ~140,000 tokens
```
Estimation methods:
- Character count / 4 (rough approximation)
- Tool output tracking (each tool call adds to context)
- File read accumulation tracking
### 2. Threshold Warnings
Inject warnings at configurable thresholds:
```
[CONTEXT 70%] Warning: Context window at 70%. Consider summarizing completed work.
[CONTEXT 85%] Critical: Context window at 85%. Spawn new subagent for remaining work.
[CONTEXT 95%] Emergency: Context window at 95%. Wrap up immediately. Write state and exit.
```
Actions per threshold:
- **70%**: Suggest summarizing completed work, pruning stale context
- **85%**: Strongly recommend spawning new subagent with fresh context
- **95%**: Emergency wrap-up: write STATE.md, commit, create continue-here.md
### 3. Orchestrator Budget Enforcement
Monitor orchestrator-specific budget:
```
Target orchestrator usage: 15-30%
Current orchestrator usage: 18%
Remaining budget: 12% (~24,000 tokens)
Budget allocation:
- Phase context loading: 5% (PROJECT, ROADMAP, STATE)
- Agent spawn overhead: 3% per agent
- Result processing: 2% per agent result
- State updates: 1%
```
### 4. Subagent Context Allocation
Recommend context allocation for subagent spawns:
```
Agent: gsd-executor
Available context: 200,000 tokens (fresh)
Recommended loading:
- Plan file: ~2,000 tokens
- Relevant source files: ~15,000 tokens
- Project context: ~3,000 tokens
- Remaining for execution: ~180,000 tokens
```
### 5. Context-Aware Summarization
Trigger summarization when context is filling:
```
Summarization triggers:
- Tool output > 10,000 characters: summarize before continuing
- File read > 5,000 lines: extract relevant sections only
- Agent result > 20,000 characters: summarize key outcomes
```
Summarization strategies:
- **Completed work**: Replace detailed execution logs with summary
- **File contents**: Replace full file reads with relevant excerpts
- **Agent results**: Extract key outcomes, discard detailed reasoning
### 6. Stale Context Detection
Identify context that is no longer relevant:
```
Stale context candidates:
- File contents read 10+ interactions ago
- Agent results from completed (not current) phases
- Tool outputs that were informational only
- Research documents already synthesized into plans
```
### 7. Wave-Level Budget Planning
Plan context budget across execution waves:
```
Wave 1 (3 parallel agents):
Spawn cost: 3 * 3% = 9%
Result processing: 3 * 2% = 6%
Wave total: 15%
Wave 2 (2 parallel agents):
Spawn cost: 2 * 3% = 6%
Result processing: 2 * 2% = 4%
Wave total: 10%
Total orchestrator budget needed: 25%
Target: 30% -> Sufficient with 5% margin
```
## Tool Use Instructions
### Checking Context Usage
1. Use `Bash` to estimate current session token count if available
2. Track cumulative tool output sizes during the session
3. Calculate percentage against 200,000 token window
4. Return usage report with threshold proximity
### Injecting Warnings
1. Compare current usage against configured thresholds
2. If threshold exceeded, format appropriate warning message
3. Include recommended action based on threshold level
4. For 95%: include emergency state-save instructions
### Planning Wave Budgets
1. Use `Read` to load plan files for the phase
2. Count agents needed per wave
3. Estimate per-agent spawn and result cost
4. Sum wave costs and compare to orchestrator budget target
5. Recommend wave splitting if budget exceeded
## Process Integration
- `execute-phase.js` - Monitor context during multi-wave execution, trigger summarization between waves
- `iterative-convergence.js` - Track context across convergence iterations, spawn fresh agents when context fills
- `new-project.js` - Budget context for parallel research agents (4 spawns + synthesis)
## Output Format
```json
{
"operation": "check|warn|plan|summarize",
"status": "healthy|warning|critical|emergency",
"usage": {
"estimatedTokens": 45000,
"maxTokens": 200000,
"percentage": 22.5,
"nextThreshold": 70
},
"recommendation": "Continue normally|Summarize completed work|Spawn new agent|Emergency wrap-up",
"waveBudget": {
"totalWaves": 2,
"estimatedOrchestratorUsage": 25,
"withinBudget": true
}
}
```
## Configuration
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---------|---------|-------------|
| `contextWarningThreshold` | `70` | Warning threshold percentage |
| `contextCriticalThreshold` | `85` | Critical threshold percentage |
| `contextEmergencyThreshold` | `95` | Emergency threshold percentage |
| `orchestratorBudgetTarget` | `30` | Target max orchestrator context % |
| `agentSpawnCost` | `3` | Estimated % per agent spawn overhead |
| `agentResultCost` | `2` | Estimated % per agent result processing |
| `autoSummarize` | `true` | Auto-trigger summarization at thresholds |
## Error Handling
| Error | Cause | Resolution |
|-------|-------|------------|
| `Token estimation inaccurate` | Approximation drift | Use conservative estimates (overestimate usage) |
| `Budget exceeded mid-wave` | Underestimated agent costs | Defer remaining agents to next session with continue-here.md |
| `Emergency threshold hit` | Orchestrator doing too much work inline | Immediately write state, commit, create handoff document |
|Review TypeScript code changes for consistency, type safety, and monorepo patterns across babysitter packages
Generate and validate documentation for @a5c-ai/babysitter-sdk CLI commands and exported APIs
Scaffold new babysitter process definitions following SDK patterns, proper structure, and best practices. Guides the 3-phase workflow from research to implementation.