Context Compaction

Long conversations are automatically compacted when the context window reaches 75% capacity. Old turns are summarized by the model while the most recent exchanges are preserved verbatim.

Automatic Compaction

Triggered automatically when:

• The context window is configured (requires a known model or manually set context_window)
• Token usage exceeds 75% of the window
• There are more than 4 user turns in the conversation

Clotho emits an agent.compaction_started event during compaction and agent.context_compacted when done, with token counts before and after.

Manual Compaction

/compact

Useful before switching to a smaller model or when you want to reset context size deliberately.

Monitoring Usage

/context

Displays a visual bar showing current token usage, the 75% auto-compact threshold, and total window size.

How It Works

1. Clotho counts tokens in the current context
2. If over threshold, the model is asked to summarize all but the last 4 user exchanges
3. The summary replaces the old turns; recent turns are kept verbatim
4. The compacted context is persisted to the chat file