Purpose
Understand and work within the constraints of agent context windows to maintain governance executability.
Scope
Covers context window limits, loading order, compaction behavior, and continuous injection mechanisms. Does not cover governance rules (see system-governance) or task state (see system-objective-state).
Minimal Path
- •Understand that context windows are finite and compaction is inevitable.
- •Prioritize loading governance pointers (
loading-policy.md,core-values.md) early. - •Use skills and on-demand loading rather than stuffing all docs into context.
- •For long sessions, periodically re-anchor to governance docs.
- •Record operational findings before context loss occurs.
Validation
- •Critical governance docs remain accessible throughout the session.
- •Compaction does not silently drop authority constraints.
- •Agent behavior remains aligned after context pressure.
Failure Modes
- •Assuming all initial context survives indefinitely.
- •Overloading context with non-essential docs.
- •Losing governance awareness after compaction without re-injection.
References
- •
docs/dev/facts/agent-mechanics.md: Universal constraints on context behavior (all runtimes) - •
docs/dev/facts/cursor-mechanics.md: Cursor-specific context mechanics - •
docs/dev/facts/opencode-mechanics.md: OpenCode-specific context mechanics - •
docs/system/loading-policy.md: What to load and when - •
docs/system/decision/require-continuous-context-injection.md: Why injection is required