Guard the Context Window

SkillFiles & storage

Apply when context is filling up: large outputs, long files, repeated reads, fan-out planning. Route bulk to subagents; keep summaries in the main thread, not raw payloads.

Available today. Use it from your connected AI after setup.

Add ahel to your AI once: Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Claude Code or Codex. Then ask it to use this.

Then ask your AI: use the Guard the Context Window skill

What this skill tells your AI

The instructions your AI receives, as published by barbieri/local-openfinance in .agents/skills/principle-guard-the-context-window/SKILL.md and read by ahel’s review.

The context window is finite and non-renewable within a session. Every token that enters should earn its place.

Why: Context overflow degrades reasoning quality, creates compression artifacts, and halts progress. Unlike compute or time, context spent inside a session cannot be reclaimed.

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.

Signals

GitHub stars
24
Forks
2
Last commit
Sep 2026
Advanced
Catalog kind
skill
Key
principle-guard-the-context-window
Source
github.com/barbieri/local-openfinance